Shasta Rose

“Fuck you, Bronte,” you whisper bitterly, sniffling and scrubbing your face with your hands.

With a sigh loaded with exasperation and various forms of bone-deep exhaustion, you stand up from your desk. Grabbing your phone, you open it to scroll through notifications as you make your way across your studio apartment to the kitchen. A ghost of a smile tugs at your lips as you read the various comments left on your most recent Instagram post informing your followers that you’ll be posting a new song soon. Something small yet warm sparks in your chest seeing how excited people are for another one of your originals.

A couple of years ago, you never would have guessed that your hobby would garner much attention, let alone that you would ever have the confidence to share it on the internet. But encouragements from friends and the prospect of doing something more with your outlet were enticing enough to post a video and see how it went. Now, you have what you would proudly call a small fan base. You’re more than grateful for not only the love and support of strangers, but the high from serotonin and a bit of extra pocket money.

Sending a dread-filled glance to your laptop as you munch on a piece of toast, you decide that finishing your essay can wait until later. You send a quick message to your friend asking if the small studio you record in is free as you quickly finish off your toast, then head back to your laptop to save and close the essay document. In the moments you spend changing into something more socially acceptable than sweatpants and an oversized sweater, your phone chimes. The excited tone of your friend comes through in their “hell yeah, get your ass over here” message full of caps and exclamations. With a huff of a laugh and fond shake of your head, you grab your bag and keys, then head out.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

“I want your things in my room, I miss you all of the time.. You make it look so easy, leaving everything behind..”

You bob your head to the music, eyes closed and letting yourself get lost in the notes. The lyrics flowing from your mouth, pained and yearning, memorized like they were engraved on your tongue.

“Not asking for much, man, thought maybe you’d call me.. I’d slit my own throat just to see if you’d mourn me, yeah..”

Heartbreak pangs violently in your chest, and you let it out in the form of sung words, willing away the sting of tears threatening to push past your closed eyelids.

“I stalk myself on the internet just to see what you’ll find..”

A sliver of doubt slithers into your psyche, telling you that you’re baring too much of yourself in this song. That you’re revealing too much of the pathetic heartbreak you’ve been wallowing in for months on end. That you’re showing everyone the bleeding wound you refuse to let scab over and heal from in order to move on from someone who didn’t want you after all.

“You look so cool getting high..”

Mini replays of the countless videos you’ve watched of him scaling buildings and swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper flash through your mind.

“No handlebars, you wanna fly..”

Memories of him flipping through the air, arms spread wide, as carefree shouts of joy and laughter burst from his lungs as he free-falls before catching himself. The phantom feeling of momentary fear and adrenaline makes your heart skip a few beats in real time.

“You look so cool, I wanna die..”

Okay, sure, maybe that line is a bit melodramatic, but teenage heartbreak is melodramatic even if you are 18 and in college and supposed to be a “mature adult.”

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.. Oh, oh, oh, I want your things in my-”

As the music fades out and the studio goes silent, you take a deep breath and slide the headphones off your head. Hooking them around the microphone, you head out of the recording booth into the control room where your friend is sitting. It’s quiet for a long moment as they just stare at you as you take a seat beside them, their face a mix of emotions you don’t have the energy to discern.

Right as you’re beginning to feel too raw and exposed under their gaze, they speak, “Holy shit, Y/N, that was fucking killer! Who hurt you??”

Their words bring both a sense of relief and irritation, and as you open your mouth to snap at them, they wave a dismissive hand and smirk, “Yeah, yeah, ‘I don’t wanna talk about it, Pey,’ I know, I know. I’m just messing with you, jeez.” Their sassy imitation of you forces an abrupt laugh from you, and you find yourself shaking your head fondly at their antics.

The rest of the time at the studio is spent with both of you going through the song and editing it until you deem it ready for the world to hear. With the flash drive in hand, both you and Peyton head out of the studio with plans to drop by your favorite diner for dinner.

By the time you get back to your apartment, you’re eager to post the song, but you force yourself to hold off until your essay is finished. Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel as daunting or dreadful as it had earlier, and you hash it out in record time. Once you’ve sent it off to one of your peers for review, you’re quick to open your editing software and plug in the flash drive containing your song.

You work into the early hours of the morning, creating visuals to go along with the audio of your song. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but you’re proud of the skills you’ve built since starting this journey. As you add final touches and hash out what all needs to go into the description, you can feel the final traces of energy leaving your body.

Hitting the button to start the upload process to your YouTube, there’s nothing left in you for you to feel anything but content. Smiling to yourself tiredly, you push away from your desk, ready to be dead to the world for at least 10 hours.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

It’s past noon by the time you wake up from being well and truly dead to the conscious world. You linger in bed for more than a few minutes, enjoying the serenity of warmth, comfort, and the sound of rain. Eventually, your grumbling stomach and full bladder force you to get up, and you move about your apartment going, through your lazy weekend routine.

An eagerness fills you as you sit down at your desk and see that your video successfully uploaded, your bagel and coffee quickly slipping from your focus. You curse under your breath in amazement when you see the number of views and likes you’ve already gotten. You immediately begin reading through the comments, laughing quietly or audibly cooing at what some people have said between bites of your bagel.

MVS1C0BS3SS3D: “This was so beautiful and painful!! Definitely gonna have this on repeat for the next year!!”

the_chosen_one: “Girl, who hurt you?!? I’ll beat them up for you!! *sobs*”

TMBTE_fr: “Damn, did you at least kiss the brick before you threw it at us?? Amazing as always!!”

justsomerandom: “I- *violently sobs*”

Gilded-Lilyyy: “IM NOT CRYING, YOURE CRYING”

W3HAV3A2319: “JKHASDKBFSAGHIFEABVCAUHER- UR AMAZING AND ILY”

You go through liking comments with an evil little giggle every now and then from the angsty chaos you’ve created. You ignore the odd few comments complaining about “another break-up song” or how you only ever sing “depressing ass” songs with a roll of your eyes, but you don’t let them get under your skin. As you continue scrolling through comments, your eyes catch on one in particular. The username is generic as hell, probably randomly generated, but it’s one you recognize because they always leave a comment on your videos, always lyrics from other songs that seem to be responses to whatever it was you had sung..

user84719056423: “I’m not a perfect person.. There’s many things I wish I didn’t do.. But I continue learning.. I never meant to do those things to you.. I’m sorry that I hurt you.. It’s somethin’ I must live with every day.. And all the pain I put you through.. I wish that I could take it all away.. And be the one who catches all your tears..”

Once again, you’re left wondering why this person doesn’t just leave a normal comment, but, hey, at least they have good taste in music. You give the comment a pity-like, definitely not the first time you’ve done so, and move on to reading other comments. By the time you’ve finished your bagel and coffee, you figure that you should give reading comments a rest and see if your essay has been reviewed yet.

The rest of your Sunday goes by quick like Sundays always seem to do, the impending case of “the Mondays” already weighing on your shoulders. Peyton drops by with takeout from a pretty good Thai place down the street from your apartment. It’s warm and tasty, and while you try to keep your mind on the here and now of Peyton’s conversation, you find yourself getting lost in memories of a special Thai place back in Queens.

“I really feel like you should talk about it, Y/N..” Peyton’s words break you from your painful nostalgia, and you meet their eyes as they continue, “Maybe you’ll feel at least a little better, hm? I’m not trying to upset you, but girl, c’mon, it’s one thing to space out sometimes, but it’s a whole other thing to space out every time we have freaking Thai food. I just, I love you, and all I’ve wanted since we met was to see this pain you’ve been carrying lessen at the very least.”

You’re quiet in your surprise, eyes widened slightly as your gaze meets theirs, their eyes begging you to open up to them, to let them help in some way. Blinking, you look down at your plate, biting your cheek as you let out a heavy sigh through your nose. You push your food around with your fork in the moment of heavy silence before setting your plate on the coffee table and meeting their eyes again.

“I’m sorry, Pey,” you start quietly, guilt gnawing at your insides for concerning your friend, and for how you’ve treated them every time the topic has come up. Hugging your knees to your chest, you pick at the threads of your sweater as you continue speaking, “It’s stupid, if I’m being honest. Stupid, and such a universal experience.”

From there, you get into the nitty-gritty details of the boy you fell for freshman year of high school. The boy who finally asked you out junior year in a mess of jumbled and stuttered words, but never losing his sunshine-bright smile. The boy you shared many firsts and exchanged ‘I love you’s with. The brown-eyed, bright-smiled, outrageously brilliant, and adorably awkward boy you had given your entire heart and soul to hold in the palms of his hands. You told Peyton the story of how Peter Parker brought you to the top of the world, only to drop you over the edge and let you watch everything crumble to dust around you the day after graduation.

With seemingly no reason at all, and no excuses to give despite how much you begged and pleaded, Peter broke up with you. He ended things, shiny-eyed in the face of your despair and tear-drenched one.

Of course, you didn’t tell Peyton about Peter being Spider-Man because a secret like that is far bigger than a teenage break-up. But you tell them about everything else from the last two years that’s haunted your psyche. You tell them that you just haven’t found it in yourself to heal and move on yet, that you still go through every heart-shredding memory to see where you went wrong. Could you have been better somehow? Could you have done more in some way?

“Fuck, Y/N, that’s.. god, get over here,” Peyton murmurs in disbelief tinged with guilt for pushing you to talk as they pull you into their arms. They whisper apologies into your hair as they soothingly rub circles into your back. You sob into their chest, your tears soaking into the fabric of their shirt, your anguish and heartbreak sharp in the air.

“Let it out, there you go,” they murmur as they begin to rock you slightly in their arms. “I’m so sorry for pushing, but I think you maybe needed this.. and, hey, that asshole didn’t deserve you. He fucked up by letting you go, and you listen to me when I say this; you did nothing wrong. You did nothing to deserve what he’s put you through, and if I ever meet him, I’m punching him in the face.”

That last little bit gets a small, wet laugh out of you despite knowing that Peter’s Spidey senses wouldn’t even let Peyton’s fist get anywhere close to his face. It brings a small spark forward in your chest, a drop of warmth breaking through all the cold, knowing you’ve got such an amazing friend.

When the tears have dried, and you both have exchanged apologies and forgiveness, you and Peyton spend the rest of the night on the couch watching movies that you eventually fall asleep to.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

The months fly by without much fanfare. Sure, you feel a bit lighter after that night you broke down to Peyton, but your heart is still a beating, painful, bleeding mess. You try to let it out through song; a couple more originals and a few covers of songs. ‘deepfake’, ‘THE GREATEST’, ‘Cry For Me’, and anything else that feels like it even comes close to how you feel inside. In the end, though, you’re still pathetically stuck in the same place you were a few months ago.

When your parents come out for Thanksgiving, you spend the week forcing the heartbreak to the depths of yourself. You manage to get through the week without it managing to overtake the warmth and joy your family brings you. And when it’s time for them to head back to Queens, you agree to come home for Christmas with a smile on your face.

The weeks after Thanksgiving are full of studying, homework, cramming for exams, and working on songs. You want to get a couple of videos out before winter break since you won’t be posting, though your small fan base encourages you to focus more on your studies, reassuring you that they’ll still be there. Even so, you’re nearly finished with a couple of songs that you’re excited to share with them, and you’re determined to get them out as soon as possible.

That eagerness is what has you hastily making your way across campus to the library. Tugging your scarf up over your nose, you walk briskly through the not-quite-snow, not-quite-rain slush that falls from the sky, running through your mental list of homework to finish. Your phone buzzes from the inside pocket of your jacket, but you choose to ignore it until you’re seated in the library.

When you finally get through the door of the library, a wall of warmth hits you, and you welcome it with a contented sigh. Lowering your scarf, you breathe in the scent of books and the underlying aroma of coffee. You wipe your boots off, then head for the most secluded table available.

Once seated, you shrug off your jacket and scarf before pulling your laptop and headphones out of your bag. As your laptop boots up, you pull out your phone to connect your headphones and check your notifications. The sight of a text message all but stops you in your tracks, and that’s just from the name of the sender. Your hands begin to shake slightly as you tap the notification to open the conversation.

Ned The Nerd: “Hey, Y/N!! Been a while, hasn’t it, sorry about that! College life is seriously no joke, haha! Anyways, I just wanted to see if you were going back to Queens for winter break?? If you are, then you should totally come to the New Year’s party I’m throwing!! It’s not going to be anything too crazy- I hope, haha- just the old friend group, good music, and some drinks while we watch the countdown! Let me know if you’re down!”

You blink at the message a few times, an odd numbness spreading through you as you try to take deep breaths. You didn’t even know that Ned still had your number; neither he nor MJ reached out after everything with Peter went down. You just kind of figured they picked a side after it was all said and done, and cut ties to you. Even if that is what happened, you can push aside the lingering betrayal in favor of seeing everyone again. You truly do miss Ned’s goofiness and MJ’s sarcasm.

“Yeah, it’s definitely brutal out here.. I will be in Queens for the holidays, so I’ll try to swing by the party. Is it okay if I bring a plus-one?”

You chew on your bottom lip as you re-read the message before hitting send, already feeling a pang of regret and dread over saying you’ll go to the party. You set your phone to the side and try to distract yourself by going through the work you need to do. The buzz of your phone on the table top nearly makes you jump out of your skin, and you fumble your phone a bit as you pick it back up.

Ned The Nerd: “Oh, uhm, yeah sure! The more the merrier! See you then!”

Letting out a slow, controlled breath, you send Ned a couple of thumbs-up emojis, then try to focus back on your homework. Your leg starts bouncing, and you bite at the skin of your bottom lip before scrubbing your face in your hands. With another deep breath, you try not to think about what you just got both yourself and Peyton into.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

You sag back into the driver’s seat of your car, letting out a long breath before continuing to sing along with the music flowing through the speakers as you wait for traffic to start moving again. With the stress of exams behind you, you’re excited to go back home and just be in Queens again. You’re already imagining the warm joy and pleasant surprise that’ll be on the owner’s face when you inevitably stop by your favorite bodega before getting to your parents’ house. Of course, you’re anticipating the other feelings that’ll come with being back in Queens, but you’re trying to heed Peyton’s advice of keeping positive.

Just about an hour later- traffic was a bitch, given the upcoming holidays and the weather- you’re standing at the counter of your favorite bodega getting lovingly smushed in a hug from the owner, Nelly. The kind older woman asks you a hundred questions about college and how you’re faring in adult life as she makes your go-to sandwich without even needing to ask what you want. You tell her about your studies, the friends you’ve made, how your hobby has taken over a small corner of the internet, and how Peyton is going to come out for New Year’s. As you’re leaving, you promise her that you’ll bring Peyton by so she can meet them after stressing for the thousandth time that they are just your friend.

Your parents are standing out on the small porch when you pull up to your childhood home, excited smiles painted on both of their faces. A group hug ensues when you get out of the car, and you playfully roll your eyes when your dad insists on carrying your small amount of stuff inside. Once you’re settled into your old bedroom, you can feel the heartache trying to slip through the cracks of the wall you’ve put up, but you’re quick to try to distract yourself.

The days leading up to Christmas grant you plenty of distractions from the ache of being back in Queens. Your parents take you out ice skating, and to see the decorations that people and the city have put up. Time at home is spent huddled under warm blankets on the couch while sappy Christmas movies play on TV. You bake cookies and other treats with your mom while your dad tries to steal spoonfuls of batter and frosting. Overall, there is very little time for you to dwell pathetically on memories of places that you used to go to and activities that you used to do with Peter.

Christmas Day comes and goes with vast amounts of joy, warmth, and laughter. It had stunned you to realize that you hadn’t felt such genuine pleasant contentedness in months, always wrapping yourself up in your pain while on your lonesome. Though, unfortunately, when day fades into night, and you realize New Year’s is next on the list, anxiety begins to creep in, overshadowing your excitement for Peyton’s arrival.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

You and Peyton stand outside of the Airbnb Ned rented, the sandwich from your and Peyton’s stop at your favorite bodega churning in your stomach. It threatens to make a reappearance as your anxiety hits an all-time high, and the platter of brownies your mom made and insisted you bring shakes slightly from the slight tremble in your hands. The front door seems daunting as you stare at it, chewing the skin of your poor lower lip.

“Jesus, Y/N, we can just leave, make up some bullshit excuse for why we couldn’t come. Just please make a decision, ‘cause I’m freezing my ass off.” Peyton speaks up from beside you, trying to hide the chattering of their teeth. You cast them an apologetic look and take a deep breath, the cold winter air kind of soothing your nerves. You step forward, Peyton in tow, and make your way up to the door, having Peyton ring the doorbell since your hands are full.

A moment goes by before the door opens and Ned’s smiling face greets you, “Hey, Y/N! You made it- oh, brownies!”

You let out a small laugh, shaking your head fondly at the fact that Ned hasn’t changed much in the months since you’ve seen him, “Hey! Yeah, my mom made them, said I couldn’t show up empty-handed because it’s rude. It’s good to see you, Ned!” You beam as you and Peyton step into the house.

“Well, I guess I didn’t say to bring anything, but your mom makes killer brownies, so it’s a win in my book! Who’s this?” Ned sends you and Peyton a bright, friendly smile as he leads you to the kitchen. Peyton introduces themselves and shakes hands with Ned as you set the platter down on the counter next to various other finger foods and a punch bowl.

“-we met at ESU and just clicked, ya know? I love this girl with my whole heart!” Peyton exclaims over the bump of music and voices of other people as they rest an arm on your shoulder. You nod your head along with what they’re saying, not really paying attention as you look around at the crowd of faces that have filled the house. You recognize some of them as people from your old high school friend group, but you quickly realize that there are more than just those people in attendance. You’re so absorbed in taking in your surroundings that you miss the questioning and disheartened look Ned shoots you.

“Oh, well, that’s awesome! Glad to hear you’ve come out of your shell since high school, Y/N! You were so shy back then,” Ned responds, his tone a bit awkward, and your head snaps to send him a look of mock offense.

“Oh my gosh, like you weren’t shy and awkward back then, too!” Your teasing retort gets a laugh out of him, and he shakes his head while holding his hands up in surrender, “Yeah, yeah, you got me there! Well, you guys, grab some drinks and food, and get to enjoying yourselves! I’m sure Pet- I, uhm, I’m sure MJ is somewhere hiding in a corner if you wanted to catch up with her, Y/N!”

Ned’s fumbled words and awkward smile don’t go unnoticed as your body tenses up at the near mention of Peter, but you send him a strained smile and nod your head anyway. He gives you a thumbs up before walking off into the crowd, and Peyton leans down to speak quietly into your ear, “Did he just try to skip over mentioning that the guy I wanna punch in the face is here?”

You let out a heavy sigh as you shrug Peyton’s arm off your shoulder to grab a plate and serve yourself some sweets, “Peter has been Ned’s best friend since they were kids, Pey. It’s only natural for him to bring him up. Please do not punch anybody tonight.”

“No promises,” Peyton responds in a sing-song tone, and you playfully kick at their ankle.

Once you and Peyton have small plates of food and drinks in hand, you move through the crowd to find MJ or an unoccupied corner. As you pass by familiar faces, you exchange pleasantries with whoever recognizes you. Right as someone is asking you about Peter and Peyton’s glare is beginning to set in place, you spot MJ and hastily bid them goodbye as you make an escape from the dreaded conversation.

You call out her name over the music, and she looks up with a brow raised and a completely bored look on her face until she recognizes you. A small, completely MJ-type of smile breaks out on her face, and she sends you a little wave. Getting up to her, the two of you share a brief side hug, then you introduce her to Peyton. As the party livens up, the three of you get into conversations about college life and the struggles of being new to adulthood.

Eventually, there’s a lull in conversation, but it doesn’t bother you much as the alcohol moves through your system and you sing quietly along with the song that’s come on, your body swaying slightly with the beat.

MJ suddenly clears her throat, looking down at the water she’s swirling around in her cup, with an unusually hesitant and contemplative look on her face, “So.. have you seen Peter, yet? You know, he really-”

It’s like a bolt of electricity runs down your spine, the way your body goes immediately still, and you can almost feel yourself sobering up from the light buzz you had going. Before MJ can finish whatever she was going to say, you’ve turned toward Peyton with a strained and fake smile on your lips, “Hey, I think I need some air! You happen to have your pack and lighter on you? You know how I get at parties!” When Peyton just nods, and you both start heading for the door to the back porch, you can feel MJ’s heavy gaze on your back the whole time you’re walking away.

As soon as you’re outside, you lean against the railing that wraps around the porch, holding a hand out with a silent plea, and trying to take deep breaths of the cold winter air. Peyton doesn’t ask any questions before fishing their pack of cigarettes and lighter out of their pocket and placing them in your hand. You don’t hesitate to take out a cigarette and light it up, relishing in the warm burn of the first drag and the slight head-spin on the exhale.

“You have to let me punch him if we see him,” Peyton says quietly as they light their own cigarette, and you can’t tell if they’re trying to lighten the mood or if they’re dead serious.

“Pey, just, please,” you utter, not even sure what you were trying to say, as you brace your elbows on the railing and hold your forehead in your palms, your cigarette held between two fingers away from your hair and skin.

In the lull of silence that encompasses you two, you hear the door to the back porch open and a voice you know so painfully well, a voice you could recognize even if it had been hundreds of years since you heard it, calls out your name so soft and pathetic. With a shaky gasp, you turn around to the owner of the voice and see the one person you’ve simultaneously yearned to and never wanted to see.

You take in the sight of Peter, your heart bleeding and torn between joy and devastation. You feel Peyton’s eyes on you, and when you look toward them, it’s like they’re silently asking you if this is the guy that broke you, their free hand already balled into a fist at their side. For a moment, you don’t know what to do: go back inside with Peyton and try to enjoy the party, or talk to the person you haven’t been able to move on from.

“Pey, can you, uhm, can you give us a minute?” Your voice is small, almost trembling as it leaves you, and you have to try not to wince under the heated and incredulous look Peyton sends you. You look at them, eyes pleading for understanding, before they finally nod and move to head back inside, glaring at Peter as they move past him. You turn away from Peter, unable to look at him for much longer as tears burn and sting at your eyes, and take another drag of your cigarette.

Peter says your name again, stuttered and soft and pleading, as he walks up to stand at the railing beside you, when he pauses, “Since when do you smoke?” And his tone becomes confused and concerned, and you feel the urge to roll your eyes.

You let out a slow exhale of smoke, blowing away from Peter because you’re courteous, goddammit, but your eyes stay on the view of the city as you reply, “It’s just a social thing, Parker. Picked it up from one of the first parties I went to at ESU.” Your voice comes out quiet and numb, a stark contrast to the whirlwind of emotions taking over you.

Peter scoffs as he leans against his forearms on the railing, “Yeah? Same party where you met your boyfriend?” And, holy shit, the disdain and accusation in Peter’s voice sends rage through your bloodstream so fast you’re dizzy.

Whipping your head to look at him, there’s a fire in your eyes as you retort, “Let’s get a few things fucking clear, Parker; one, Peyton is non-binary. Two, they are my best friend, not my significant other. And fucking three, you broke up with me, so what gives you the fucking right to make any comment about my dating life, huh? You ended things, Peter, so any bullshit bitterness or jealousy or what-the-fuck-ever, that’s all on you!” You end your outburst panting and glaring at him until you turn back toward the city and wipe a few stray tears from your face.

Taken aback by your outburst, Peter is wide-eyed and silent beside you until he closes his eyes, a hand running through his hair as he curses under his breath. You don’t look at him as he splutters for a response, just try to get your hands to stop shaking and ignore the sound of your heart beating and blood rushing in your ears. You take a few more drags of your cigarette before stubbing it out in the snow on the railing, shaking your head at the word salad Peter is stuttering at you, “Actually, I can’t do this, Peter.” You say, voice thick with unshed tears as you move to head back inside.

You barely make it one full step before Peter grabs your hand, his voice a pleading whimper as he begs you to wait a second. It feels like your heart physically cracks when you pause to look back at him, and you wonder if his enhanced hearing could pick up the sound it had to have made. Silence hangs heavy between the two of you as you stare at each other. His hold on your hand is gentle, light enough for you to pull away if you wish to, and his thumb is softly running across your cold knuckles almost absentmindedly, and you have to bite back the pained whimper in your throat.

“Pete, I-” you attempt, voice wrecked from emotions and tear-soaked despite not letting the tears roll, but he steps closer to you with words falling from his lips, interrupting whatever it was you were going to say.

“Y/N, please.. I-I know that no apology could ever make up for what I’ve done to you, wha-what I’ve put you through, but I am so fucking sorry.” Peter stammers out, a few stray tears falling from his tear-shined eyes. His hands, ever-warm from being enhanced, come up to your cheeks, his thumbs stroking along your cheekbones, as his eyes stare into yours.

The tears that had been building so painfully in your eyes finally fall, and you choke on a sob. You wait for him to continue because this is Peter Parker, and he always has more to say. He’s silent for a moment longer, bottom lip trembling and face scrunching over seeing the pain he’s caused you before he sniffs and lets out a shaky exhale.

“Whe-when I.. when I ended things, I was going through some stuff that I hadn’t shared with you.. and I know there isn’t a single good reason out there to excuse breaking your heart the way I did, a-and I’m not looking to make excuses, but I need you to know. I-I need you to know because I haven’t stopped loving you, not for a single damn second. Letting you go was the biggest, most regrettable mistake I’ve ever made, inside and outside of the suit.”

You’re both fully crying now, Peter’s words driving you to feel a new mix of emotions that you’re trying to untangle. You open your mouth in an attempt to say something in response, but he shakes his head, eyes begging you to let him continue, to let him get it off his chest.

“It had all hit me on graduation.. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, any of it; go to college, be Spider-Man, help the Avengers, maintain our relationship long-distance.. I was overwhelmed. Mr. Stark was pushing so hard for me to give the suit a break and go be a normal college kid, a-an-and it felt like he was taking it from me all over again.. And I know, I know, I should’ve talked about it with you, all of it.. but I just shut down, and in the mess of it all, I broke you.”

Peter breaks eye contact with you, his face scrunching and eyes squeezing shut as his head bows and a small sob pushes past his lips. Spiderweb cracks spread further across your heart at the sound, and you push his hands away from your cheeks in favor of wrapping your arms around him, holding him tightly as you both fall apart. He doesn’t hesitate for even a millisecond to wrap his arms around you as well, burying his face in the crook of your neck. The minutes feel like hours as you hold each other, Peter sobbing apologies and you trying to soothe him through your own sobs.

Eventually, you’re composed enough to pull back slightly and take his face in your hands, your red-rimmed and tear-soaked eyes meeting his, “Yes, you should have told me. God, I wish you had told me, Peter. I was your girlfriend, your partner, the person who would’ve shouldered your burdens with you. I would’ve been there for you, and we could’ve tried to at least figured out a solution for us.. Nearly anything we could’ve come up with together would have been far less painful than what we’re going through now.”

The guilt, pain, and regret sits heavy on Peter as he stares back at you, and he tries to cry out more apologies, but you cover his mouth with a hand, “I don’t want any more apologies, Pete. I.. I just want you to promise to do better if we give ‘us’ another shot. Can you do that?” There’s a small, trembling smile on your lips when you finish speaking, and you let out a quiet, wet laugh when your words process in his mind and he nods his head with a dumbfounded look on his tear-soaked face.

“B-but, why?” Peter asks in a disbelieving whisper, voice cracking, and his eyes searching yours.

“Because we’ve both suffered enough, Peter, and if this is meant to be, then I don’t want to just walk away from it. Everything isn’t magically fixed, obviously, but I love you, Peter, and I’m willing to put in the effort to make this work if you are..” Your voice is quiet but full of hope, your eyes filling with tears all over again, but they’re from happiness this time.

“A thousand percent, I am. I love you, Y/N, so much.” Peter murmurs, those same happy tears shining in his eyes and that ever-bright smile of his pulling at his lips.

The seemingly ethereal glow of his happiness only lights up your own eyes for a moment when Peter suddenly pulls you in for a kiss. It surprises you at first, but your lips slot with his like puzzle pieces fitting together, and all of the cracks in your heart fuse back together. You both laugh into the kiss for no reason other than the pure bliss of being with each other again.

The two of you abruptly break away from the kiss when the door open, and Peyton walks out with a scoff, Ned and MJ following behind them. Peyton walks up to your side, glaring at Peter the entire time, while Ned is cheering and enthusiastically shaking MJ by the shoulders.

Crossing their arms, Peyton puffs out their chest, trying to come across as intimidating, “If you screw this up again, Parker, I really will punch you in the face.”

Both Peter and Ned go stock-still at Peyton’s dead-serious tone, while MJ laughs at Ned going a shade paler. You bring a hand up to your face, shaking your head and muttering a quiet, “Jesus, Pey, quit it.”

Then, as if a switch flips, Peyton goes back to their usual chill and happy demeanor, holding their hand out to Peter, “Anyway, hi, I’m Peyton!”

Their complete 180 just makes MJ laugh harder while Ned lets out an awkward laugh and takes a cautious step back. Peter lets out his own awkward laugh as he shakes Peyton’s hand and properly introduces himself. You huff a quiet laugh at the questioning look Peter sends you and shrug.

And as you all head back inside, Peter’s hand in yours, you feel an easy and weightless kind of happy contentment that you haven’t felt in months.

Note ~ Oh, Tom Holland, the man you are.. that beautiful brit boy is one of my husbands fr fr, lmao. Anyway, send in requests because I wanna write but I don't have any solid ideas rn. Much love, Lovelies!! <3 <3

The Director had told you in a tone so plain and empty, as if you weren’t sitting in that meeting room staring into a handheld mirror, experiencing major derealization. It still astonishes you how unfazed and apathetic the Director can be. You still have trouble accepting that nearly every single detail about you has been changed except for your very DNA, while the Director acts like you’re the same as you were before.

“Just remember, Ms. L/N, you willingly signed up for this…”

Those are the words coldly thrown at you every time it is suspected that you are breaking down or trying to abandon the mission. You are never allowed to forget that you volunteered to do this, that you sacrificed your normal day-to-day comfort on your own accord. You are frequently reminded by the Director, and by yourself.

“We’re so close..” You mutter aloud, in a voice that wasn’t yours until two years ago, the reassurance as you finish putting makeup on the face that also wasn’t yours until two years ago.

If it meant saving them, you’d live as someone else a thousand times over.

“Hell yeah, we are,” an enthusiastic response comes through the speaker of your phone, and you flinch slightly as you’re pulled from your mind. The owner of the ditzy and upbeat voice is Hinata Mae. She ranks fairly low within the organization, with her tasks being gathering and reporting intel, and recruiting. She was your in with the organization, and for some reason, she attached herself to you. So, you grit your teeth and pretend to be best friends with the annoying woman.

“You’re working tonight, right, U/N?” Mae continues, and you suppress a sigh as you work on doing your hair. “Apparently, all of those so-called ‘heroes’ are gonna be there tonight, not just the usual odd few. Souta heard while he was monitoring the audio from the bug in the dumb one’s office that they plan on making a tradition out of it. Something about ‘honoring the memory’ of the bitch we killed.”

Your hand comes up to the left side of your chest as you feel a sharp pang of phantom pain. If you looked like your normal self, there would be a scar marring the skin just beneath where your hand is rubbing. You really had died that day after being shot, but the HPSC medics had managed to bring you back. After regaining consciousness, the Director had visited you and explained what exactly was going on. That day, you had learned that you and every other Pro Hero ranked in the Top Ten were being targeted by a cunning and elusive organization. Shock and rage had ruled over your other emotions, knowing that your friends were on that list, that Katsuki was on that list.

When the Director had offered to send you into the organization undercover, you didn’t hesitate to accept. So you were stripped of your identity, your Quirk, and your day-to-day life. Everything that made you you was buried. It all died the day that Pro Hero H/N died. Now you are U/N U/L/N, one of the few Quirkless members part of a radicalist group that wants to see Heroes fall.

You make a face at Mae’s words, but bite back the urge to say anything or make any sort of noise of annoyance. Two years of this undercover crap and embedding yourself within the True Light Organization, you still have to consciously hold your tongue to keep from biting someone’s head off. It’s an increasingly difficult task when one of them spouts crap about your friends, your grieving friends.

“Yeah, I go in 2 to 10 tonight. Ugh, but I’m stuck with working with Onishi.. Hopefully, he can actually focus on gathering intel rather than my ass.” You say with authentic dread in your voice. It’s one thing to deal with a guy’s flirting after you’ve expressed your disinterest, but it’s another thing to have to put up with that flirting when it’s coming from the man who tried to kill you.

“Oh my gosh, U/N, you have no idea how lucky you are to even be on his radar! He is so hot, and it’s, like, only kinda unsettling that his hand turns into a gun and the bullets are literally made of bone.. Ugh, I’ve been trying to get his attention for, like, ever!” Mae whines, and you roll your eyes so hard it hurts.

“Well, keep tryin’ because you can have him- Listen, Mae, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, ‘kay? Bye.” You rush to end the call before she can blabber on any further, and you let out a heavy sigh.

Sliding your phone into your back pocket as you stand up from the vanity, you make your way to the nightstand and open the drawer. Grabbing the Quirk-suppressing bracelet the HPSC had given you for this mission, you sit on the edge of the bed and clasp it around your ankle. You watch as it self-tightens to fit snugly around your ankle, and then changes colors from cold metal gray to your skin tone, disappearing. It’s a process you watch happen every day because even though it’s such a small and nowadays simple tech trick, you find it cool.

With another sigh, you get up from the bed and head for the closet. You shove past clothes and random junk to get to the small safe hidden at the back of the closet. Punching in the code you’ve long since memorized and waiting impatiently for the scanner to read your fingerprint, the door to the safe opens. The small space inside the safe is nearly barren except for three items. There’s a cellphone provided to you from the HPSC that’s only to be used for short messages or mission updates, a flash drive containing all the information the HPSC has on the True Light Organization, and a picture.

Reaching in, you grab the cellphone and go through the process of not only turning it on and unlocking it, but getting into the heavily secured email app. You type out a short email to the HPSC relaying the information that was given to you by Mae. After sending it, you feel a bit better inside knowing that the HPSC will send out disguised agents to watch over your friends tonight, like they’ve done in the past when they all go out.

You turn the phone off and place it back into the safe, but hesitate to bring your hand out. Your gaze lingers on the photo, fingers hovering just near the edge of the only piece of your old life that you secretly brought with you. You weren’t supposed to have anything that could give away your true identity, nothing that could link you in any way to Pro Hero H/N. But out of all the items that the HPSC cleared out of your work locker at the agency, out of all the things they forced you to change, they weren’t going to take this one thing from you.

Carefully picking the photo up by the corner, you bring it out of the safe. The icy-cold feeling of loneliness, the heavy weight of longing, and everything else that has been building up inside of you for the last two years flood to the front of your psyche. You gaze down at the happy faces of your friends, and at your own smiling face, at your actual face, with a sad fondness.

The picture was taken at the party your class held after the UA graduation ceremony. You remember how chaotic it was to gather the whole of Class 3-A for the photo, but it was very much worth it. Everyone’s joyous faces captured and frozen in time, even Katsuki had put on a small smile. But it’s not just that it’s a photo of your old classmates that makes it so dear to your heart, that makes it so dangerous and damning if someone from True Light were to find it, no.

It’s the signatures on the back of the photo.

Flipping the photo over in your hands, your eyes trace over everyone’s names, each written in their own individual and unique handwriting. You’re reminded of how eager you were to get all of Class 3-A’s signatures before you all set out on your paths. And you were successful in not only getting everyone to sign their names, but to sign their Hero names right under their names, autograph style. To this day, you feel a silly giddiness over being the only person to have all of their first autographs as Pro Heroes.

Turning the photo back over, you bury all of the feelings that would push you to end your mission early as you look at your friends’ faces a moment longer. To help make sure they all get the chance to smile despite being Pro Heroes, despite the known or unknown threats of villains, that’s one of the reasons you’re doing this.

Even if you had to die and watch their smiles fade.

Tags List ~ @emmaiscool22 @ch3rryjampi3 @maddie-rose-1 @lilac-heartz

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

“She’s gone..”

Katsuki can remember those damned words being sputtered by your stupid fiance clear as day. He remembers how he was reluctantly dragged by Kirishima to the apartment you shared with that lame-ass extra on the basis that he needed to discuss something with everyone. “Everyone” meaning the group of people that you had been friends with since UA. People that extra was only friends with because he was in a relationship with you.

“I said, she’s gone..”

Your dumb ass fiance had repeated in response to Katsuki’s disbelief-ridden question. But he still hadn’t quite understood what your fiance had meant. Where had you gone? On a mission? On a vacation? Did you run away as a means of breaking up with this extra that you had claimed you loved? Katsuki was struggling to understand why so many people around him had dissolved into tears.. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to understand.

“-she’s dead..”

Kirishima had dumped the ice-cold reality of your fiance’s words over Katsuki with a hand on his shoulder and a teary, sympathetic look on his face. Clarity had run through him like an electric shock, and for just a moment, his normal facade had cracked. But the only person who had seen the anguish was Kirishima seconds before Katsuki shoved his best friend’s hand off his shoulder and stormed out of the apartment.

Everything had felt so surreal and suffocating, and he was panting by the time he had burst out of the main doors of the apartment complex. All he wanted was to go home to his own apartment where he could feel his feelings in private, but Kirishima had driven. So, he started walking, staring ahead blankly as the cold winter air bit at the exposed skin of his face and neck. Unfortunately, the cold had done nothing to wake Katsuki from the nightmare he had been so sure he was having.

Since that day, Katsuki has been repeatedly going through the five stages of grief. Every time he thinks he’s finally accepted that you’re gone, that feeling of something being off with this whole situation pulls at the back of his mind and sends him right back to the denial stage. He tried to talk to Kirishima, Midoriya, and Ashido about it, but they just looked at him with such pity and sadness that it made his skin crawl. He still doesn’t understand how everyone else has just accepted that you’re gone. Even your dumb fiance accepted your death without question and has moved on to a new relationship. However, the fact that the extra was able to move on so fast just makes Katsuki wonder even more just why you had ever wasted your time with that loser.

Katsuki’s therapist believes that the reason for his setbacks in the grieving process, along with his feeling of something being off, is due to the regret he feels. Regret for never telling you how he felt about you. Regret for letting you waste your time, effort, and love on some sleazebag who only ever just gave you the bare minimum. But his regret isn’t the source of this feeling sitting like a rock in his gut, at least, not in his opinion.

His suspicions started a few months after your death when he had asked your fiance for the full story behind what had happened to you. The guy told Katsuki that he was contacted by the HPSC, and they told him that you had been killed in action. That was Katsuki’s first red flag. Typically, HPSC officials would go to the home of the next of kin, and deliver the news of their loved one’s passing that way. The fact that they had called your fiance is extremely weird.

The second red flag that had been raised in Katsuki’s mind came after he had asked your fiance if anyone from the HPSC had come by to bring him in to identify your body. Your fiance had given Katsuki a strange look as he shook his head. He told Katsuki that he was only given the address to the funeral home where he had picked up your ashes. It had taken everything in Katsuki to not make a face at your fiance, he was truly astounded that someone could be so blindly trusting. Then again, the majority of the population isn’t aware of the kind of shit that the HPSC pulls in the name of “good”.

The last red flag that caught Katsuki’s attention and pushed him to believe that something was definitely off about your sudden death, he found on his own. He had stayed late at his agency, waited for everyone to leave, and spent the night in his office searching through every reported crime that had been made in the area of your patrol route from the day you supposedly died. The area you had patrolled that day has always been known for being pretty sketchy with the crime rates and villain activity there being pretty high. Even so, you were a very capable hero, it’s one of the reasons why Katsuki admired you so much. He knew that you could have handled yourself in nearly any situation.

When Katsuki had finished reading through the nearly 60 reports made that day of nothing but low-level activity in that area, it was pretty much confirmed in his mind that there was something that the HPSC was hiding. As he had sipped on what was probably his fifth coffee, he couldn’t tell if he was moving further away from or moving closer toward becoming the “string-covered-conspiracy-theory-board” guy.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

Sitting at his desk, Katsuki lets out a heavy sigh as he fights the urge to rub his tired eyes because he knows that’ll just irritate them further. Finishing up his written patrol report, he pushes it off to the side, mentally assuring himself that he’ll file it away properly later. He slides his keyboard closer to himself and hits the space bar to wake his computer, then types in his password when prompted. One hand shifts over to the mouse, and he opens the database program. He goes through the process of uploading a clear photo of your face, then hits the button. It’s not long before he’s zoning out while staring at the rapidly changing faces in the small window next to your photo.

He’s done this every day since his doubts about you being dead surfaced. He’s never gotten a single hit, but he can’t stop running the program. He can’t stop any of his efforts to find you because just the thought of giving up and accepting that you’re gone makes his chest feel so tight that he can’t breathe. He doesn’t care how long it’s been or how long it’ll take, you’re out there and he will find you.

Even if it has been two years.

Two. Fucking. Years.

It’s been two years since you died. Two years since your (ex)fiance held a private “Celebration of Life” for close friends and family. Two years since the HPSC announced your death to all of Japan. Two years since a public vigil was held so that the country could come together to honor your memory.

Two years since everybody so easily ate up a ridiculous lie without question.. everybody except Katsuki.

“Pretty sure your therapist suggested that you stop doing this, man..” Kaminari’s voice coming from right next to him forces Katsuki back into reality.

“Fuck off, Dunce. You don’t know shit about what my therapist says.” Katsuki growls out, shoving Kaminari away from him and into Kirishima.

“I overhear what you tell Kiri sometimes..” Kaminari admits under his breath before realizing that maybe he shouldn’t have if the death glare on Katsuki’s face is anything to go by.

Once he feels that Kaminari is properly shaken, Katsuki lets the matter go, for now, with a heavy sigh, “What are you extras even doing here? Go home.” He mutters, giving into the urge to rub his face while leaning forward and bracing his elbows against the desk.

“C’mon man, you know why we’re here.. Go get changed, then we can drive over together,” Kirishima says gently, carefully, like Katsuki is an unwilling child. It pisses Katsuki off for a multitude of reasons. The main one is that there’s a difference between acting petulant about going somewhere and refusing to attend some stupid annual dinner to honor someone who isn’t even dead.

Katsuki’s lip curls as he lets out a sigh of frustration, and he leans back in his desk chair, sending a look to Kirishima, “This shit ended in disaster last year. I don’t know why any of you thought it would be a good idea in the first place to bring a group of grieving people out to their “dead” friend’s favorite izakaya. Why try to make a tradition out of ugly crying and public intoxication? How is that ‘honoring Y/N’s memory’-”

“Jesus, dude.. maybe you would understand it if you just accepted that she’s gone already!” Kaminari snaps uncharacteristically, making Katsuki pause his rant to stare at him in shock as the electric blonde rushes out of the room.

Kirishima let out a tired sigh, watching Kaminari’s retreat before looking back to Katsuki with a not-so-subtle hint of disappointment in his eyes, “Come or don’t come, Katsuki, it’s up to you. Just don’t judge how the rest of us decide to heal.” Kirishima says quietly before walking out of the room.

Katsuki lets out a low growl through gritted teeth as he scrubs a hand over his face. He leans back in his desk chair and glares at the computer screen. Guilt bubbles in his stomach from upsetting his friends, much to his frustration. He doesn’t want to go to that stupid izakaya. He wants to stay here in his office like he does every night continuing his search for any signs of you. He watches the database program sift through faces for a moment longer before cursing softly and standing from his chair.

Tags List ~ @emmaiscool22 @rosy-hollow @ch3rryjampi3 @maddie-rose-1 @lilac-heartz

Katsuki has heard or read those three words his whole life whenever people described meeting their soulmates. His parents, his relatives, and even some of his friends who have met their soulmates already. And it’s always the same sappy story that gets told leading up to that same stupid line.

“Time stood still..”

And he’s never believed it for a second because how stupidly cliche is it for “time to stop” when looking at someone? Even if that someone is supposedly who you’re meant to be with because some “higher power” said so.

“Time stood still..”

It’s all crap in Katsuki’s mind, straight-up bullshit. He doesn’t want or need a soulmate, and he doesn’t believe anything would happen if he ever met them. Time wouldn’t stop. No one would be running into each other’s arms. None of that gushy, lovey-dovey, movie crap would happen. It’s all completely unrealistic stuff that people add to their stories to make them sound better, and Katsuki doesn’t want any part of it.

Right as he’s hitting the point of wondering why there’s no “disgusted” button between every like and dislike button out there, a villain attack alert fills his phone screen. With the crackling of his comms coming to life officially marking the end of his lunch break, he slips his phone into his pocket. As he blasts off to the location of the villain attack, all thoughts of soulmates and sappy crap are replaced with the slightly feral excitement of an impending fight.

Getting to the scene, all of Katsuki’s excitement dissipates as he takes in the wreckage that has already been made. The operator he has been receiving details from had said that the villain’s Quirk is dangerous and destructive. Looking around at the crumbling buildings and cracked pavement, Katsuki feels the description was a gross understatement.

For only a moment longer, Katsuki watches the few rescue heroes that have already arrived on the scene work before he steels himself and takes off toward the latest location of the rampaging villain. When he does catch up to the villain, he’s secretly relieved to find other heroes have arrived as well. Deku, Kirishima, and a few other heavy hitters whose Quirks would work well against the villain’s Quirk. Wasting no time, Katsuki is patched through to the frequency that Deku and the other heroes are using, and he joins the battle.

The fight is grueling and goes on for hours before the villain is finally taken down and apprehended. It doesn’t feel like a win to Katsuki, though, not with the carnage left in the wake of the fight. There’s rubble everywhere from downed buildings, chunks of pavement are missing from the ruined streets, and then there are the casualties.. There aren’t as many as there could have been, but they are still civilian lives lost. Katsuki forces himself to stay in hero mode as he helps with rescue efforts. He can focus on the pain of his injuries and his self-deprecating thoughts later.

He continues moving through a half-collapsed apartment building, calling out and asking if anybody needs help. He manages to help a few injured civilians out of the building, making sure to get them to the teams of medical personnel right away. Luckily, it seemed that most of the people who had lived in that apartment building managed to evacuate before the villain came ripping through it.

In the midst of helping an elderly woman to an ambulance, Katsuki notices a few medics surrounding somebody and performing CPR on the person. Kirishima is standing off to the side of them with a grim and guilty look on his face. Katsuki quickly makes sure the elderly lady is in the care of a medic before making his way over to his friend. Now, Katsuki is absolutely not the face of comfort, but in growing up he tries to be there for his friends when they need it, damn it.

“Red,” Katsuki rasps out, his tone a touch gentler than it normally is as he walks up to his friend.

“She.. she was barely breathing when I found her, but I.. I thought that if I was fast enough, they could help her..” Kirishima explains helplessly, his voice thick with emotion, as he continues staring at the scene in front of him.

It’s then that Katsuki looks over at the medics and the woman they are trying to save. Unfortunately, he chooses to look over right as they declare the time of death and they all step back from the woman. Getting a clear look at her, Katsuki’s breath catches in his chest, and a pain like he’s never felt before spreads through his chest.

He had believed it was all bullshit. He had believed that everyone just spewed that crap to make their stories more sappy and gushy. He’s never even wanted a soulmate. Never believed he could love some stranger even if they were meant for him. Time doesn’t stop for anyone or anything, so why carry the belief that it would even feel like that while looking at some random? It was all crap in Katsuki’s mind..

Until now.

Staring at your limp and lifeless body, a peaceful look on your face underneath the blood and dust, Katsuki is in complete disbelief. It.. it was all supposed to be bullshit. He didn’t even know it was truly possible to feel anything like this..

“Baku- Dynamight? Are you okay? Did you know her?” Kirishima’s voice sets everything back into motion, and it’s fucking painful.

Gritting his teeth as tears well up in his eyes without his permission, Katsuki’s voice rasps quietly, “I think.. she was my soulmate.”

Anything else Kirishima says is lost to Katsuki as he feels his knees give out, his chest feeling like a hole was blown through it. The pain of loss consumes him, choking him with a lump of emotions he never thought he’d feel. Thoughts of what it would have been like to get to know you, what your voice sounded like, how you would have helped him learn how to love someone.. they all race through his head, crossing the painful finish line of it all being ripped away from him before he’s even had the opportunity to give the whole soulmate thing a chance.

His whole goddamn life, Katsuki had never believed a word anybody said about love and soulmates. Then he saw you and in the worst way possible..

Time stood still.

The day passed with Shota stuck in a deep, medication-induced slumber. Doctors and nurses came in and out of the room to check on him. At one point, Hizashi came by to sit at Shota’s bedside and quietly cry for a bit. You had spoken some with his Protector, the being feeling it necessary to commend you on all of your efforts to keep Shota safe during the attack. Despite your feelings on the matter, you thanked the other Protector for their kind words. When Hizashi was told that he had to leave for the night, his Protector bid you farewell and you nodded your head to them as they left.

The hours tick by slower than you’ve ever felt before, but soon enough light from the full moon outside casts a wondrous glow in the room. You marvel at it as you sometimes do since beings such as yourself don’t require sleep. After a while, the feeling of being watched pulls your attention from the window. You look first toward the door, wondering if a nurse and their Protector had somehow sneaked into the room. Seeing no other being, you slowly turn your gaze to Shota’s face, eyes widening as they meet his partially opened ones.

“Do you sit at my feet like a cat every night?” He asks, his voice barely above a whisper as he continues looking at you with lidded eyes. A cross between a scoff and a bewildered laugh leaves your mouth. You choose to ignore your confusion, obviously something about this lifetime is different, even if you don’t know what or why.

“I do not… Oftentimes, I stand at a window and observe the night… I can move if you are uncomfortable with my current position…” You offer, already preparing to stand.

“No… The static feeling of your presence is.. nice.” He whispers as his eyes slip shut, his breathing deepening to the usual cadence it takes when he’s asleep.

‘He.. he can feel my presence..?’ You ask yourself as you sit in silent shock. You shift back into your original position and wish that there was someone or some other being you could hurl all of your questions at.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

Both you and Hizashi’s Protector stand near the window as the two humans talk. Hizashi had arrived earlier this morning just before Shota woke up, so you didn’t have the chance to test if he could truly still see and talk to you. You now find the test unnecessary with Shota’s eyes occasionally drifting in your direction every now and then. By the nth time Shota’s dark eyes meet yours, you’ve had enough of your fellow Protector’s questioning looks.

“I am just as confused as you are…” You tell them, pulling your eyes from Shota’s to look at the Protector you’ve known for a good fifteen years by now.

“So, he can see you…” Akari states rather than asks, and you nod your head.

“When he.. when he was dying yesterday.. his soul separated from his body and we were able to talk to one another… I do not understand why.. and when he was brought here, and his soul re-bound itself to his body, he was still able to see and talk to me… The whole situation has left me truly.. puzzled…” You explain, finding it a struggle to get the words “he was dying” out of your mouth. The guilt and shame that you’ve had to repeatedly shove down worming their way back to the surface along with your confusion.

“That is quite peculiar… Is.. is this your first pairing with his soul?…” Akari’s hesitant question catches you off guard, and you look at them with a stunned expression.

“N-no, but.. have you had repeats as well?…” You whisper, desperate to know if this sort of thing has happened to any other Protector. It’s Akari’s turn to look stunned, and a look of relief washes over their features.

They cast a glance over at Hizashi before looking back to you with a small smile, “Only with Hizashi’s soul… This is my third lifetime as his Protector…”

Akari’s admission draws a gasp from your mouth, and you can’t help but feel relieved that another one of your kind knows some of what you’re going through. Feeling Shota’s eyes on you, you turn to meet his questioning gaze. You shake your head slightly, silently telling him that you’ll talk with him later. He stares at you for another moment before looking back toward Hizashi.

“This is my fourth lifetime as Shota’s Protector… I was beginning to think I was the only one experiencing this.. and I never felt the need to ask any other Protector about it… I simply figured that it was just part of the job…” Akari nods their head in relation to your words and casts another glance at Hizashi.

“What do you think is the reasoning for it?…” They quietly ask, as if voicing their question any louder would make everything fall away and send them off to another pairing.

Your own gaze wanders to Shota, a small smile pulling at your lips at his feigned annoyance over whatever Hizashi said, “I am not quite sure.. but whatever the reason may be.. I am just happy to be Shota’s Protector…”

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

It’s early evening when Hizashi takes his leave, promising to come back tomorrow morning to pick up Shota when he’s discharged. You gaze out the window as a nurse comes into Shota’s room and feeds him dinner. With his arms in casts, the nurse has to actually feed him and now that he can see you, you figure that you won’t hurt his dignity more by watching him be fed. It’s only when you hear the door close behind the nurse that you make your way back to his bedside.

Shota eyes you for a moment before carefully leaning his head back on the pillow and closing his eyes with a tired sigh, “You can sit down if you’d like.”

Wordlessly, you accept the invitation and sit cross-legged on the spot where he had made space for you at the end of his bed. Absentmindedly, your eyes trace the paths of his bandages like you’ve done a hundred times over since he’s been in the hospital. Sensing your eyes on him, Shota opens his and studies you for a moment or two.

“Stop it.” He demands in a firm yet gentle tone, and your gaze pulls from his bandages to meet his stern one.

“What?…” You question, slightly confused, and he lets out another sigh.

“Stop beating yourself up.” He clarifies before continuing, “You did more than enough to protect me back at the USJ. I put myself in this bed. Not you. Me.”

Biting your lip, you search Shota’s eyes for the blame you feel you deserve, but all you find is the firm resolve that was in his tone, “If.. if you insist…” You relent quietly, a bit of doubt still laced in your tone. Taking what he can get, Shota lets the matter go for now and chooses to move the conversation along.

“Earlier, when Hizashi was here, I assume you were talking to his..” Shota pauses to think about what to call you and your kind.

“The term ‘Protector’ works just fine, Shota… Most of us refer to each other as such, anyway…” You provide with a small smile, appreciating his effort to call your kind by the “correct” name.

“Okay, then.. You were talking to his Protector? I couldn’t see or hear them like I can with you, but I figured you weren’t just talking to yourself.” Shota’s voice holds the same tired, stoic tone you’ve come to know over the last thirty years, but you can see the curiosity in his eyes.

“And, if I was talking to myself?… What then, human?…” You tease with a playful smile, and you can tell by the small, amused huff that Shota lets through his nose that he’s hiding a small smirk underneath his bandages.

“Then I would assume that we both have brain damage,” he jokes, albeit dryly, but you’ve always found humor in his brand of comedy.

Your giggle gives an ethereal echo and you shake your head at him, “Their name is Akari… I suppose they could be considered a friend… At the very least, they are somewhat of a coworker to me by human standards… I have interacted with them quite a bit since you became friends with Hizashi… They informed me earlier today that they seem to be in almost the same situation as I…”

Shota gives a slightly surprised and intrigued look before an almost dismayed sigh leaves his mouth, “I can’t believe I haven’t thought to ask until now… What’s your name?”

A small, amused laugh passes through your lips, “Considering that you were not even supposed to know of my existence, it is quite alright… Most of us do not have names and some will choose a different name for themselves with every new pairing… The name I have chosen for myself is Y/N…” You inform him before giving your name with a warm smile on your face.

Shota repeats your name quietly to himself as if testing it on his tongue, and something about hearing him say it makes you feel warm inside. Your mind doesn’t have time to question the feeling when he speaks again, “So, what is this ‘situation’ that you mentioned?”

You find yourself hesitating for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain the whole thing to a man who lives almost religiously by logic and rationality. You suppose that since he took to finding out about your existence so well maybe your next words won’t sound completely.. insane.

“Let us start with how long I have been protecting souls…” You begin gently, hoping that he can manage to put aside whatever his beliefs or disbeliefs are about concepts beyond the human plane of existence.

Once you’ve finished explaining your entire confusing and strange situation, a long silence follows. The look in Shota’s eyes is hard for you to read as he stares down at his lap, so you’re not sure what he could possibly be thinking. Feeling like you’ve finally pushed him over the edge of thinking he has truly lost it, you silently stand and move toward the window. You watch the sun slowly dip below the horizon as the silence continues. You hear movement behind you and your intuition spikes causing you to whip around to see Shota slowly standing up from the bed.

“What are you doing?… You should be resting still, Shota…” Your confused and concerned words do nothing to stop Shota from shuffling his way to your side. When he gets to the window sill, he leans lightly against the wall and gazes outside for a few moments before looking at you.

“Let me get the facts straight,” he starts, quietly. “You’ve been protecting people for thousands of years, without the need for reason. In all that time, you never protected the same person more than once until me. You also believed that you were the only one experiencing this until your talk with Hizashi’s Protector. Even so, you still don’t know why this is happening. Does that about sum everything up?”

‘He doesn’t sound like someone who believes they should be locked in the psych ward…’ You think with a hesitant smile before speaking, “I believe so… Listen, Shota.. I know how all of this may sound to a human… You are probably still wrapping your head around my very existence and being able to see me… But I.. I feel just as confused and disbelieving as you do…” Your smile falls as you speak, your expression and tone something of uncertainty as you turn to gaze back out the window.

Shota sighs as he steps away from the wall and comes to stand right up against your ethereally glowing body, your shoulder phasing slightly through his as he follows your gaze out the window, “It is a lot to try to understand, but living in a world where humans are born with superpowers.. it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to believe in other forces at work out there in the universe.”

You turn your head to look at him in shock before a small huff of a laugh slips past your lips, “I have gotten to know your soul pretty well over the last five hundred years, Shota.. gotten to know that no matter the lifetime, who you are does not change like your name or appearance does… So, I am surprised that you are being so open-minded about this… You never were one for ideals like religion or higher powers or unseen beings… So, where has the real Shota gone?…”

Shota lets out a small, quiet chuckle at your slightly teasing tone, and turns his head slightly to meet your eyes, “I’m actually pretty open-minded when it comes to a lot of subjects. I just find that my time is better well spent focusing on what’s tangible in this world rather than what hasn’t even been proven to exist, that’s all.” He retorts in a tired tone that doesn’t match the teasing glint in his eye.

You playfully roll your eyes with a soft giggle before giving a small shake of your head, “Ah, I see… Well, all teasing aside, our situation may be odd but at least now I can warn you of danger easier… Though, I will try not to be a nuisance…”

Shota lets out a quiet huff as he turns to start walking back to the bed, “Don’t worry about being a nuisance. Between being Class 1-A’s teacher and being a Pro, seeing and hearing you will be significantly more helpful in tough situations.” He says as he carefully gets onto the bed, a quiet groan leaving him as he lays back.

You let out a quiet and affirmative hum as you follow behind him, then take a seat at the end of the bed by his feet when he makes space for you. You watch as he gets as comfortable as anyone could get with injuries like his when his eyes meet yours. You silently question the embarrassed scowl he’s shooting you until the realization hits you. You mumble an apology before quickly shifting your gaze to the window. Among the many little habits you’ll have to break now that he can see and hear you, just watching him for the sake of observing him is going to be the first.. and the hardest.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

The next day, Hizashi bursts into Shota’s room sputtering apologies for being twenty minutes late picking him up. Shota just brushes him off with a grumble of feigned annoyance while you and Akari giggle quietly to yourselves. A nurse comes in shortly after Hizashi’s arrival, pushing a wheelchair up to the side of Shota’s bed. Shota immediately begins protesting having to be wheeled out to Hizashi’s car, insisting that he can walk just fine.

“I know I said I would not be a nuisance, but listen to the nurse, please Shota…” You say a bit firmly as the timid nurse tries explaining to Shota the hospital’s policies.

With an irritated huff, Shota reluctantly moves from the bed to the wheelchair, grumbling slightly under his breath. You smother a giggle as you take in Hizashi’s shocked expression, the blonde clearing having expected more of a fight from Shota. However, the giggle slips free some when you catch the brief glare thrown your way from Shota as the nurse pushes him out of the room.

Hizashi stopped by UA so that Shota could talk to Nezu and go by Recovery Girl’s office. Despite the insistence from Nezu, Hizashi, and yourself to take off a few more days, Shota firmly stated that he would be returning to work the next day when classes resumed. During the walk to the infirmary, you couldn’t help the displeased feeling that had settled over you from Shota’s stubbornness. As a Protector, it’s normal to disagree with decisions that could impact the well-being of the human one is paired with, but this felt like.. more than that. Sighing to yourself, you choose to not overthink your feelings so as to not add more confusion to your already puzzling situation.

You and Akari stood by the window of the patient room while Recovery Girl examined Shota’s injuries. Luckily, she determined it safe enough to use her Quirk on Shota, even if it didn’t heal Shota as much as he may have wanted it to. By the time it was said and done, he was still bandaged up like a mummy, but at least his casts were able to be redone so that he could use his fingers. As you and Akari silently followed your humans to Hizashi’s car, you still hadn’t been able to shake your displeasure.

Finally getting back to Shota’s apartment, you stood behind him as he deflected every one of Hizashi’s attempts to stay and help. A bit dejectedly, Hizashi bid Shota goodbye, while you just silently nodded at Akari, still mostly lost in your thoughts. Once Shota shut the door with a tired sigh, you wordlessly made your way to the dining room window. It’s one of your favorite spots in the apartment with its view overlooking the city.

“Are you going to be silent and brooding for the rest of the day?” Shota asks, his tone is tired and slightly irritated as you hear his socked feet shuffle toward the kitchen. You feel a mixture of emotions as you tamper down a spike of irritation, your confusion over your situation only increasing.

“You should eat, then get some more rest since you insist on returning to work tomorrow…” You say in an even tone as you continue gazing out the window. You realize that your wording most likely comes across as petty, and maybe you want it to since he ignored you back in Nezu’s office. You hear Shota open the refrigerator and let out an irritated sigh, rummaging around for a moment before letting the door close a bit harder than necessary. You turn around to face him at the sound of condiments and jars inside the refrigerator knocking around.

“My students need to see that I’m okay. What they went through was terrifying, even for Pros like myself. None of them deserved to experience a villain attack like that before their careers have even started to begin. It’s my responsibility to be their face of strength-” Shota angrily defends his decision, most likely easily riled up from pain and exhaustion, but it only serves to irritate you more and cut him off.

“I understand that, but it is my responsibility to make sure no harm comes to you, even if the threat to your well-being comes from you… You need more time to recover, Shota… You are not ready to return to work in your condi-” You say firmly trying to maintain an aura of calm until he cuts you off.

“But in the end, it’s my decision! Your job is to silently protect me when it is necessary. I’ve made it through the last thirty years of decision-making based on my own judgment just fine, Y/N. Me being able to see and hear you now doesn’t change that.” Shota snaps, and you can’t help but feel taken aback and.. hurt. There are a couple moments of tense silence broken only by the sound of Shota taking a few deep breaths.

Your mind is once again reeling from how deeply you feel your emotions, but outwardly you straighten up and slip into emotionless professionalism, “You are correct… I apologize for overstepping, it will not happen again…” You state before turning back toward the window, ignoring the pain in your chest. You can feel Shota’s eyes on you, but neither of you says anything more, not even when the ethereal glow of your body flickers and dims a bit.

You’ve never questioned why you exist, why you’ve been given your role, or who was in charge of all of this. You don’t even remember how you came to exist if you were being honest. But from time to time, you do think about some peculiarities you’ve encountered over the thousands of years you’ve been doing this. One of the peculiarities you find to be more.. odd, for lack of a better word, is that of the billions of souls swimming around out there in the universe you’ve experienced repeated pairings with one of them. Though, once again, you don’t ask questions, you just do your job.

Over the last 500 years, you’ve watched over just under a hundred different souls, and that number has only been so low because you keep getting paired with one soul in particular. He’s had a different name each lifetime that he’s lived through, and his appearance changes with each new life. But you can always recognize his soul; the colors of it, the shape of it, the feelings ebbing from it, and.. the way it pulls at yours unlike any other soul has. In this new life, he has dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin, and goes by the name Shota Aizawa.

The world that he has been born into this time intrigues you. It seems as though most humans, including Shota, are born with powers of all kinds. It fascinates and challenges you in the sense that these “Quirk-powered” humans will make your job of protecting Shota a bit harder. But despite being paired with his soul again and the impending challenge, you silently vow to do your job as best you can. Shota certainly doesn’t make things easier for you when he decides to attend a high school that helps the youth to become Heroes. You stay by his side, though, unseen to the human eye as you watch him work to become a Hero.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

Let it be said that while your sole purpose is to protect those you’re paired with doesn’t mean that you are some unfeeling being. Countless times have you wished so desperately that you could provide comfort to the humans you protect. Moments when they’re overwhelmed, devastated, or grief-stricken, and all you can do is watch them break apart emotionally. Sometimes, most times, it feels like their pain is your pain. Unfortunately, now is one of those times…

You’re standing beside Shota as he looks down at a pile of rubble that has crushed one of his friends. He’s clutching his bleeding arm with a devastated and traumatized look on his face. As if by reflex, you reach out to put a hand on his shoulder, but your hand phases right through him. You whisper an apology to him even though he can’t hear it, and look at the being across from you. The ethereal glow of their body flickers and dims sporadically as they gaze down at the rubble. It’s hard for you to see the look of deep sadness and guilt on a fellow Protector’s face, especially one you’ve come to know fairly well. They look up at you and the disappointment they feel in themselves is practically palpable.

“You did well… His will to save those children just happened to be stronger than his will to pay attention to your signs… You did all that you could…” You say to them in reassurance, the ethereal echo of your voice holding a certainty to it.

“Thank you…” They say before vanishing into thin air, likely pulled to the next soul they’ll be protecting.

You look back to Shota and wish that he didn’t have to experience such pain so early on in his life. A heavy feeling weighs over you as you follow him to the ambulance that he’s being led to by paramedics. You give silent nods of acknowledgment to other Protectors when you cross their paths. You try your best to offer reassurance to dejected-looking Protectors whenever you notice them lingering. When the day is over, and Shota is curled up on a bed trying to deal with his emotions, you almost dread what the future may hold for this lifetime.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

Years pass by, and you watch Shota shape into an amazing Hero and person. You feel some relief when Shota accepts a teaching position at the same school he graduated from. You hope that maybe he would mostly stay out of trouble being a teacher versus being a Hero full-time. It wouldn’t be a lie to say that this lifetime has been really making you put in the work toward keeping Shota safe.

School year after school year, you watch Shota intimidate his students and make drastic decisions geared toward helping them realize the path they’ve chosen to pursue. It can be said that his methods are harsh, but you know that he is just trying to help them understand the realities of becoming a Hero. Oftentimes, you think back to the day he lost his friend, and it feels as though you are the only one to see his reasoning.

The day you walk into the classroom for Class 1-A behind Shota, you are interested in what he has planned for this new group of students. The year prior he expelled his entire class, which had even thrown you off a bit. As he gives his introduction, you scan the small sea of students and their Protectors. Most of the Protectors appear neutral, almost laid back for the moment, but a few catch your attention.

The Protector standing near a boy with a scar on his face seems to be wilted, their helplessness almost making their ethereal glow dim to nothing. The Protector to the left of a boy with green hair appears to be harshly glaring at the blonde boy in front of the green-haired child. Meanwhile, the spiky-haired blonde boy’s Protector seems to be exhausted, and from the aura the boy gives off, you wonder if the exhaustion is from protecting him or just observing him. Lastly, the Protector standing near the blonde boy seated closest to the door is rather.. shifty, like they’re nervous. Their gaze keeps darting around the room to look at the other Protectors, then back down to the boy they are paired with.

You understand that as children, none of the students really pose any threat to Shota, but you find that it’s still best to be on higher alert if a human’s Protector is acting strangely. Especially in this lifetime and with all of the many Quirks you’ve seen from being by Shota’s side. You’d much rather err on the side of caution than ignore a potential threat.

By the end of the first day, you’re quite surprised that Shota only expelled one student this year. The short boy seemed quite upset when he learned of his expulsion, but his Protector seemed to have slumped with relief. It made you wonder just what that Protector had observed of the boy throughout his life. Regardless, seeing the posture of the Protectors near each of the female students ease at the news of the boy’s expulsion was enough for you to agree with Shota’s decision.

The second day doesn’t go as smoothly as you or Shota had hoped. Shota wasn’t in any danger, thankfully, he just slept peacefully in the teacher’s lounge while a Hero called All Might took over the class. When Shota was awoken by his phone ringing, it was Recovery Girl informing him that one of his students was very injured during the battle training All Might was supervising. You could practically feel Shota’s worry and anger as you followed behind him as he made his way to the infirmary.

After watching Shota give All Might a stern talking-to for letting the students go that far during training, you followed him back to his classroom. You listened idly by as he announced that he would be taking the class on a trip to a facility called the USJ in a couple of days. Most of the students cheered and voiced their excitement over going on a field trip, but Shota was quick to quiet them. He made it clear to the class that it wasn’t going to be a leisurely trip, but another means of Hero training. With most of the class deflated down into more of a serious state, he dismissed them for the day.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

The day of the trip arrives without much fanfare, and you stay dutifully by Shota’s side as he leans back against the seat of the bus and naps. Vehicles such as buses were always an interesting environment to be in as a Protector. Looking over your shoulder at the rows of seated students, you see each of their Protectors lining the middle aisle. While your kind doesn’t really exist on the same plane of existence as humans, your ethereal bodies are comparable to what humans call ghosts, you still prefer not to be phasing in and out of a human body.

As the bus slows to a stop, Shota awakens and stands to face the class. He tells them to be on their best behavior and to focus on learning all that they can today. You make your way off of the bus with Shota leading the way and his students following behind. You and Shota walk up to the doors of the USJ, joining up with another Hero dressed in a spacesuit.

The spacesuit Hero, Thirteen, cheerfully greets the students and then begins explaining the purpose of the USJ. They get serious while explaining that there are a lot of dangerous Quirks out in the world that have the potential to be deadly before showing and explaining their own Quirk. Your gaze sweeps over the students, and you find that most of their Protectors are absentmindedly nodding and checking to see if their humans understand the warning being given.

Soon enough, Thirteen pushes the doors to the USJ open, leading Shota and his students into the facility. The students audibly marvel at the inside of the USJ and its different disaster zones. Thirteen gets into explaining what the different zones are and the unique difficulties that come with each zone. When they finish, they look to Shota and he nods at them before beginning to tell the students who would be in which zone. Shota gets interrupted by a red-haired student, their Protector pointing to something behind you and Shota. When you turn around to see what the Protector is pointing at, your intuition and protective instincts flare to max levels.

A massive portal has opened up down in the center plaza of the USJ and sketchy-looking humans have begun pouring out. You hear Shota identify them as villains and you gear yourself up for the fighting he will inevitably engage in. As expected, Shota yells for the students to stay with Thirteen and rushes into battle. You follow closely behind him, confident in his fighting abilities and quick reflexes.. But, you know that even if he isn’t aware of your existence or the parameters of your job, he does rely on you to watch his back.

Being a Hero’s Protector is no easy feat since villains have their own Protectors. Your kind have a job to do, no matter the human you are paired with. A villain’s Protector will protect them just as fiercely as a Hero’s. That said, since being Shota’s Protector in this lifetime, you’ve worked harder to become faster at alerting Shota to danger. More often than not, you can get Shota’s attention and help him to strike before a villain’s Protector can warn them.

As Shota is taking down villain after villain, you take a brief moment to look toward three unmoving villains. The one with multiple severed hands clutching his body scratches at his neck wildly as his Protector stands near him. You notice something strange about the other two near the Hand Villain, though.. While they both seem to be alive, neither of them has a Protector within sight. It’s unusual for your kind to stray very far from the human they are paired with, so not seeing a Protector right next to either villain is very abnormal.

In your momentary distraction, Shota takes down two more thugs and is rushed by the Hand Villain. Disappointment, in yourself, floods you as you watch Shota blink and his Quirk deactivate. The Hand Villain monologues as the spot where his hand is on Shota’s elbow begins to crack and flake away until the muscle underneath is showing. Shota reactivates his Quirk and breaks away from the Hand Villain, but his groans of pain echo in your mind. Berating yourself for being so careless, you stick closer to his side as more low-level thugs surround him.

The Hand Villain continues his annoying chatter as Shota, tired and worn out as he is, fights off the thugs using his good arm. His elbow looks bad, and you feel like you’ve failed him. You work harder to give him every sign and warning possible to take down the thugs relentlessly rushing him. Difficult as it is with one arm, Shota succeeds and turns to face the Hand Villain, putting you both back to back. Horror fills you along with the urgent and intense need to warn Shota, but with the state he’s in, he misses sign after sign that you send his way. He doesn’t notice the hulking beast behind him until the Hand Villain says something.

Despair like nothing you’ve ever felt before fills you as you watch the monstrous creature beat Shota down like he’s nothing but a small bug under someone’s boot. You scream, but the echoing ethereal sound only catches the attention of other Protectors around you. You flinch every time you hear the snapping of bone and cry of pain. The ethereal glow of your body dims from the feeling of failure filling you, and when the merciless creature slams Shota’s face into the ground you think only one thought…

‘Shota is going to die today…’

Falling to your knees next to Shota, you’re gaze is too focused on the growing puddle of blood on the ground to realize that the monster leaves Shota to defend the Hand Villain. Apologies spill from your lips over and over again as you continue looking at his limp and broken form. You can feel that he is dying and for some reason, it causes you immense pain. It’s a pain unlike anything you’ve ever felt before with any other soul, or during any of his other lifetimes. Everything else going on near or around you becomes irrelevant as you place a hand on Shota’s head, your touch light enough to not phase through him.

You startle when you feel the touch of a hand on each of your shoulders and looking up, you find a Protector on either side of you. You also notice that three of Shota’s students, the green-haired boy, the girl with the frog Quirk, and the boy with the tape Quirk, are carefully lifting him. The three students’ Protectors help you up off of your knees and walk with you when the students start moving toward the entrance of the USJ.

“Fret not, he may still have a chance…”

“You did all that you could…”

“His will was to protect those students, and you helped him achieve that…”

The echoing ethereal tones of the three Protectors walking with you fill your ears, but you find it difficult to take comfort in their words. Words that you’ve said to so many others before. Words that you’ve found comfort within before when you were feeling far less pain than you are right now. You can’t find it in yourself to respond to the other Protectors, so you just continue to walk in solemn silence.

At some point, the green-haired boy and his Protector break away to head back to the fight, leaving the other two students to carry Shota to the entrance. When they finally get up the steps and rejoin the small group of other students, they carefully lay Shota’s body down next to Thirteen who also seems to be injured greatly. You gaze down at Shota numbly, unable to comprehend why you feel so.. broken.

“What the hell is going on..?”

You startle as a sudden presence from beside you speaks. Recognizing the voice, your head whips to the side in complete shock. Standing there right next to you is Shota, looking far more translucent than he usually does. You just stare at him in shock and disbelief, your mouth agape and eyes blinking owlishly.

“Who the hell are you? Is this some kind of Quirk? Are you one of the villains?” Shota asks, his tone is demanding and quite confused, not that you blame him.

“Y-you.. you can see me?…” You ask, disbelief and confusion coloring your ethereal voice. Now, at this moment, in this lifetime, you have so many questions as you also wonder what the hell is going on.

“Uhm.. yeah. I can see you.” Shota says with uncharacteristic uncertainty. Apparently deeming you non-threatening, his posture deflates into resignation as his gaze sweeps across his students, “So.. are you here to take me wherever it is dead people go?”

Sadness creeps back into you and you look back down at his broken body, shaking your head, “No, I.. I only protect… Escorting the dead is not part of the job…”

“Protect?” Shota questions quietly as he looks back at you. “What, like a.. Guardian Angel?” The skeptical tone in Shota’s voice makes the corners of your mouth tick up ever so slightly because even though he is quite literally dying, of course, he is trying to be rational right now.

You meet his eyes with a slightly amused look in yours, “You humans have many names for my kind, ‘Guardian Angel’ is one of them… Many are like me; uncaring of what we are called, just here to do our job…”

Shota still looks skeptical, but he nods his head, “Does this normally happen when a person dies? We get to meet our.. Guardian Angels before we move onto whatever afterlife is out there?”

You shake your head and look back down at his body, “This has never happened to me before… We are not meant to be seen by humans, dead or alive.. and technically, you are not dead… Your body is struggling, but you are still alive…”

You pause for a moment as the weight of your failure falls back over your shoulders, almost tenfold. You speak again before Shota has the chance, your tone heavy with sadness, “I am so sorry, Shota… I should have done more to keep you safe… It is my fault that you are in this position… I failed you…”

Silence hangs between you both as you watch paramedics move Shota’s body onto a stretcher. They spend a few moments wrapping his injuries with makeshift bandages and attaching various equipment to him. When they begin moving him to an ambulance, you step forward to follow but are stopped when you feel a warm hand on your shoulder. It’s different than the cold feeling of another Protector’s touch and stops you in your tracks. You turn slightly, your wide eyes meeting Shota’s uncharacteristically soft ones.

“You.. I’d like to think that you did your best to protect me, and whatever happens to me.. just know that I don’t blame you.” Shota’s gentle tone catches you off guard and also strikes something deep within you. The most you can muster is a shaky nod before you both begin to head for the ambulance his body was taken to.

Flashbacks to the day you ended your life fill Katsuki’s vision when he dissociates as he continues staring at your casket. Day and night, awake and asleep, it all haunted him; the horrible images, the echoing screams, the nauseating smell of blood.. He had been a few minutes too late. He had just gotten out of his haphazardly parked car, panicked and intent on racing up to the apartment you shared with him, when he saw the growing crowd of horrified bystanders. Everything seemed to drain from Katsuki’s body the moment he saw them, and he numbly made his way over to the side of the building where they were gathering.

A few people were crying, a couple were vomiting off to the side, and someone wouldn’t stop screaming. Everything had felt surreal, like it was a terrible nightmare, as Katsuki moved past people to get to you. When he had gotten to the front of the crowd, all of the bystanders moving back and believing that Pro Hero Dynamight was there to help somehow, Katsuki just froze. He just watched with numb disbelief as an elderly woman laid a handkerchief over your face and whispered a prayer for you. He spent a moment or two convincing himself that the broken body in front of him wasn’t you until he saw the bracelet he’d given you for your birthday sitting on your blood spattered arm.

That was when he had lost it, when every emotion had hit him all at once. Pictures and videos from that day haunt him just as much as the memories. The moment he fell to his knees with tears dripping down his face and mouth open in a silent scream. The moment he had to turn away so as to not vomit on or near your body. The moment he sat on the bloody ground next to your body and held your cold, dead hand until the police got there. Even the video of Izuku and Kirishima pulling Katsuki away from your body as paramedics zipped you up in a body bag still circulated his social media feeds as much as it had when it was first posted.

But he deserved to be reminded of that day, didn’t he? The way he sees it is that he’s practically the one who pushed you off of that roof. If he hadn’t started seeing Ochaco again behind your back, then maybe he could have the woman he actually loves in his arms again. He still can’t find a good excuse for why he started sleeping with Ochaco. She had been a lot of firsts for Katsuki; first relationship, first kiss, first time sleeping with someone.. Sure, he had heard that it’s hard for people to truly let go of the person who they shared “firsts” with, so maybe that’s why he slept with her. Even with all of the firsts he shared with Ochaco he didn’t feel for her what he felt for you, he didn’t love her.

But his shitty excuses or vows to continue loving you even though you’re gone will never clear him of being a lying, cheating bastard. If he could have just one more chance to start over and be a better man, not that he would deserve it, but you deserved so much more from life. You deserved to do the things you loved. You deserved good times with friends and family. You deserved to be loved by someone light-years better than Katsuki will ever be. You deserved brighter days lived without the silent pain and suffering.

Looking around at every single person that showed up to mourn the loss of your beautiful presence, Katsuki knows. Listening to your family, Hatsume, and others speak about you and the happiness you brought into their lives, Katsuki knows. Standing up in front of everybody suppressing the urge to vomit up his guilt and stuttering through his own final words to and about you, Katsuki knows..

You truly were the greatest.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

It was a known fact since that almost nothing could pull Mei Hatsume away from her work. Not people, not basic human necessities, not even the fear of war. Her drive was incomparable to anything most have ever seen before. It concerned most people, but then there was you. Yes, you were concerned for the pink-haired girl’s well-being, ever since the day you two had become friends. But you were the only one willing to stay right by Mei’s side providing support, sustenance, and help when needed. Even if you two didn’t talk very much during times when either of you were so focused on a project, there was still a blanket of comforting silence.

All of that is gone, now.

Being able to bounce ideas off of each other, gone. Having you stop by the shop to check on her and bring her food, gone. Sleepovers spent watching inventor documentaries all night, gone. The rare lunch break spent at yours and Mei’s favorite cafe, gone. The only person that’s ever felt like a sister to Mei, gone. Gonegonegonegonegonegone- everything is just fucking gone!

Mei has never felt so empty, so coldly numb, before in her life. She’s sitting by your parents, and every sound is muted like her head is underwater. She stares at your coffin, numbly unaware of the tears flowing down her face. It feels like her Quirk is active, her field of vision filled with what may or may not be the zoomed in view of your glossy black casket, and nausea tugs at her stomach. The heavily weighted emotions that came with the news of your death try to break through her numbness, and makes her skin crawl.

She’s moved through every stage of grief a million times over by now, her mind unable to comprehend that you’re just gone. There’s a constant back and forth within her brain of “how could she have not noticed your pain” and “you never showed your pain” with a bit of the fact that Mei knows that she buries herself in her work. She doesn’t know if her guilt is justified or not. The occasional glance at Bakugo and seeing him practically drowning in guilt and regret does and doesn’t help with justifying her own feelings. Mei was your best friend long before Bakugo was your boyfriend, she should have known you were struggling.

The day you died, Mei hadn’t even known that you, or anyone else, had tried to get a hold of her until damn near 1 AM when she finally left the workshop. She had grabbed her stuff from her office and dug her nearly dead phone out of her bag with a tired but accomplished smile on her face. She has always been used to having tons of notifications clouding her phone screen, with the way she worked herself, it was normal. So, she had made her way through the agency building humming and navigating through her phone to get to her voicemail. One from you; normal. A few from Izuku; not entirely out of the norm for when he had a new idea for gear or when he was being Mr. Caring Boyfriend. One from your parents.. that was the one that caused an uneasy feeling to churn in her stomach. Because as much as your parents loved Mei and vice versa, phone calls were rarely ever exchanged.

Mei listened to your voicemail first. Listening to how broken you sounded, that was the start of her world shattering around her. Then she listened to the voicemail your parents left. The gut-punch that the word “gone” had delivered knocked the breath from her lungs, and she could barely make out the tear-filled apologies spoken by your mother. By the time Mei finally got to Izuku’s voicemails, she was on her knees in the lobby of the agency, sobbing. She still isn’t sure how managed to call Izuku with the state she was in, all she could do was break.

Now, she’s here; standing in front of a crowd of your family and friends. Your lifeless body lying in the glossy black casket behind her. A tear-stained, wrinkled piece of paper held in her trembling hands as she musters up the will to speak. She eyes looks from Bakugo’s guilt-ridden face to your parents’ tear-soaked ones, then to Izuku’s sad but encouraging face. With a nod and a shaky breath, Mei glances down at the tear-blurred words on the paper..

“Y-Y/N is-was.. sh-she was tr-truly the gre-greatest..”

Note ~ Also, please forgive that this is for the most part unedited, and I didn't run it through grammarly.. I love and appreciate every single one of you, and I'm sorry that I've been lacking lately. Just keep being amazing and bearing with me, Lovelies. <3

When you first met Katsuki, you were a Support Course student. You were in the top three for your class, and just as ambitious as Mei Hatsume. Though you were far more tame than the pink-haired girl, the two of you became very close friends. You were, and still are, the hidden crazy to Mei’s in-your-face crazy. Your friendship with her along with her oblivious, borderline ditzy way of going about things were the driving reasons behind you almost asking her to swap who you’d been assigned with from Hero Course 1-A.

As it had turned out, swapping wasn’t allowed, so you had been stuck with making and fixing support gear for UA’s most explosive student. There was a lot of clashing of personalities at the start of your partnership, but after proving yourself to him, he managed to tone his attitude down some. Not long after he had managed to get over himself, there were a lot of after-school costume discussions. As well as many times Katsuki just silently and intently watched you work on his gauntlets, observing and learning what he could fix himself. Naturally, after all that time spent together, you couldn’t help but fall for him at least a little bit.

Unfortunately, you never had the guts to say anything to him, plus you realized just how focused he was on being a hero. Then graduation came and you both went your separate ways, your previous partnership nothing more than a school assignment. That happened with nearly all of the other partnerships between the Hero Course and the Support Course. You were just sad that you hadn’t gotten to see Katsuki one last time, to wish him well or tell him you enjoyed working with him or something..

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

As the years went by after graduation, you worked your way through different levels of Support Gear Engineering with a decently known company. You weren’t surprised when Mei was able to get her own company up and running in that time. It also wasn’t a surprise when Mei asked you to come work for her. You agreed in a heartbeat and not long after, Mei signed a contract with DynaDeku Agency. Suddenly, you were seeing Katsuki almost every other day versus the rare night out that Mei would drag you to with Deku and his friends. But seeing him more only worsened your.. pining.

Conversations were always work-related, never anything more than talks of new gear or upgrades to current gear. It’s not like you never tried to push for a more casual conversation. But every ‘How’s your day going’ was met with a silent and questioning glare. You hid your feelings of hurt and rejection with warm smiles every time.

You kept your admiration to yourself. You cheered Katsuki on from the sidelines like you were nothing more than any of his other fans he’d never met. But you longed for him to see you as more than ‘that one support chick’ as he so eloquently referred to you as more often than not. You longed for him to see you. Instead, you watched as he took his sights off of his hero career for a moment just to look toward his fellow hero, Uravity.

In the short time that they were together, you had thought that they had made an odd couple. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but you just felt like they weren’t very right for each other. The feeling wasn’t entirely from a place of jealousy, you’d honestly thought you maybe wouldn’t fit any better with him, despite your feelings for him. There was just something about them being together that hadn’t made a whole lot of sense to you.

You’d figured that they must have discovered what it was because just a few months after they announced their relationship to friends, they broke up. Neither of them was all that torn up about it, which you had found odd, at least when it came to Uraraka. The pink-cheeked woman hadn’t been the mess that you’d thought she’d be considering how borderline clingy she had been with Katsuki. Instead, whenever you saw her at nights out with everyone, she was smiling and bubbly like nothing ever happened.

You didn’t waste any real time picking apart either hers or Katsuki’s behaviors, though. It wasn’t any of your business, and quite frankly, you didn’t care about how Uraraka moved on with her life. In all honesty, a secret part of you was just happy to once again have the chance to try to put yourself on Katsuki’s radar. You had mustered up all of your courage and confidence to put yourself out there a little bit more. It felt like it had taken forever, but finally, your efforts were noticed. The day Katsuki asked you out to dinner was so surreal that you couldn’t believe that it wasn’t just a dream.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

It’s been a little over seven months since that first date. At the start of your relationship, things were a bit awkward but fun and quite surprising. You were secretly shocked to find out just how sweet Katsuki can be in his own way. You’d learned that he speaks through actions, and not so much through words. You’d learned that behind closed doors, he’s calm and gentle and caring.

Those first few months were full of enough sappy moments to make even Cupid sick to his stomach. There were nights of home-cooked meals made by Katsuki’s very talented hands. Rare coinciding days off from work were spent watching movies and cuddling. Passionate moments of heated kisses and love-making. It used to make your head spin just how loving Katsuki could be. But every couple moves out of the honeymoon phase and learns something more about each other.

What’s the thing you’ve learned within the last three months? Katsuki Bakugo is a fucking liar.

That warm, loving, cared-for feeling that used to spread through your chest has grown cold. You’ve gotten good at faking it though, plastering a loving smile on your face when you’re with him. Feigning that warm tone whenever you tell him that you love him. It’s not that you don’t, not that you’ve stopped loving him.. It’s just gotten hard to say those three stupid words since that first lie slid so easily off of his tongue.

You suppose that you could say that you’ve also learned that with all of his smarts, Katsuki is fucking stupid. It seems that in the years since being partners at UA, your loving boyfriend has forgotten what your Quirk is and what it does.. Because you can’t imagine that he would be doing what he’s doing with that kind of knowledge at the forefront of his brain.

Your Quirk is called Polygraph. Whenever somebody lies to you, your Quirk will automatically activate, resulting in a spike in your heart rate. It’s the kind of Quirk you know would have been useful in police work, but you’ve always had a love for inventing things. Your Uncle Naomasa still tries to get you to switch careers, despite the name you’ve made for yourself in the Support Engineering world.

One would think that with Katsuki having to work with the police, mainly Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, that he would remember a detail such as your Quirk. Or how about the fact that most boyfriends remember their girlfriend’s fucking Quirk, flashy or not?? But with every lie that comes out of his mouth about where he’s going or who he’s hanging out with or who is fucking texting him, it’s painfully apparent that he doesn’t. He just speaks and you have to ignore the spike in your heart rate and paint on an oblivious smile.

𖤛 𖤛 𖤛

You feel almost numb when Katsuki kisses you goodbye. He tells you that he’ll have to stay late at the office to do some paperwork and your heart rate spikes at the lie. You fake a pout as you nod, and he sends you a smirk.

“Promise to make it up to you, so wipe that sexy lil pout off your face. C’mere,” he says, making your stomach churn unpleasantly, before pulling you into a hug.

“Be safe out there,” you murmur against him, and you mean it despite knowing that he isn’t being truthful about staying out late.

“Always am, Sweetheart. Enjoy your day off, ‘kay? Love you.” He murmurs back before kissing your forehead, and you bite back nausea as you tell him you love him. As you watch him leave, you ask yourself for the billionth time how isn’t he lying about loving you when he’s doing something that would make it so obvious that he doesn’t even care about you.

You wait your usual 30 minutes to an hour after he leaves, making sure that he doesn’t come back because he forgot something, before grabbing your laptop. You sit back down on the couch with the device in your lap and numbly navigate to the locked file you have hidden away. You click on it, enter the password, and then pull up the contents of the file. You stare at the hundreds of screenshots you’ve collected over the last three months of conversations and photos, nearly emotionless. After a couple of moments, when you start to feel the sting of tears welling up in your eyes, you open your web browser. You sign into the secret email you created when you first started gathering evidence of Katsuki’s infidelity. Once you’ve signed in, you make quick work of adding the most recent screenshots you’ve gotten to the file.

The heartbreaking shock of discovering that it’s Uraraka that Katsuki has been seeing behind your back has long since worn off. The whole damn situation has just become some sick kind of surreal. You’ve repeated her name so much in your mind that it doesn’t even seem like a real name anymore. You’ve read so many dirty messages between the two of them that the rage has turned to cold numbness. You’ve seen both of their nudes so many times by now that Uraraka’s bare body doesn’t bring up the repulsion you once felt. It all just makes you feel so far past hurt that all you can truly feel is numb.

You watch as the screenshots load into the file, your eyes blankly scanning over words until your gaze catches. You stare at a specific message you hadn’t noticed when you’d gone through Katsuki’s phone to collect more evidence. A single line standing out from the rest of Uraraka’s messages to your boyfriend;

“I still love you, Kats..”

That single line throws you over the edge you were teetering on. You practically throw your laptop onto the couch cushions as you rush to get up. You barely make it to the bathroom, crashing to your knees in front of the toilet as you vomit. Tears stream down your face as your body tries to expel everything inside of you. Your nose runs as your throat burns, and you dry heave a few times as sobs rip from your chest. You wipe your mouth and nose with toilet paper, then shift to sit against the bathtub. Loud, painful, and anguished sobs echo off of the bathroom walls. You don’t even know what Katsuki had said in response to her confession, but you don’t need to know. The fact that he’s still sneaking off to sleep with her is telling enough. Stomach acid burns at your throat again as the message flashes behind your tightly screwed eyelids, and you heave into the toilet once more.

When you finally feel like there’s nothing more for your stomach to expel, you wipe your face. The tears and sobs continue relentlessly as you stand, flush the toilet, then make your way to the sink. You rinse your mouth out, the minty mouthwash burning more than usual before you spit it out. As you straighten back up, wiping your mouth on the hand towel, you lock eyes with your disheveled reflection. Suddenly, you’re seeing red as all of your rage floods your mind and body. A scream tears from your throat as your fist flies into the mirror, shattering it. Your mind clears a bit as you stare down at the shattered glass. Your now bleeding hand looks like it should hurt, but you don’t feel the split knuckles or cuts from the glass. All you can feel is the emotional turmoil that’s consumed your very being.

You make your way back to the living room, leaving the mess of glass and blood in the sink. You stumble the whole way back to the couch, tripping over your feet and your knees giving out from how hard you’re sobbing. You practically fall onto the couch, grabbing your phone off of the coffee table, uncaring of the blood you’re getting on the device. With shaking hands, you unlock your phone, navigating through your contacts while half-blind from tears. You hit the call icon as soon as you reach the contact you’ve been searching for.

“Pleasepleasepleaseplease-” You mutter, you pray, between sobs as the line rings.

“Too busy with my babies! Leave a message I may or may not listen to!” Mei’s voicemail message chirps brightly into your ear, and a whining sob leaves your throat as the beep rings out and cues you to leave a message.

“I-I Lo-love y-you, M-Mei.. P-pl-please, al-ways re-remember th-that..” You stutter and sob out before hanging up and burying your face in your hands.

After a few moments of soaking your hands in tears, you bring your head up. With closed eyes, you roll your shoulders back, wipe your hands on your pants, and try to take deep and even breaths. Only once you’ve regained some sense of calm and control over yourself, do you open your eyes. You let your mind sink back into that comfortable numb you’ve grown acquainted with over time. You stand up from the couch and almost robotically, you head for the storage closet. It takes a bit of digging through boxes, but you finally find them.. Letters to your closest family members and friends.

The letters are abandoned products of your deepest, darkest secret. You have been struggling for years now. To everyone around you, even your parents, you’re kind and happy and kind of shy and stable.. But the you in the mirror knows about every single self-deprecating, withering, hatred-filled thought. Something in your mind is broken, always had been, but it never needed to be anyone else’s problem. You are the only one who has ever needed to worry about the fact that you’ve had one foot hanging off of the edge. Besides, you’re the only one who can keep yourself from giving in to the call of an unseen dark abyss, its voice warm and holding promises of relief.

You carefully lay the letters out on the kitchen table. You grab your laptop from the couch and place it neatly on the table. You pause for a moment and look down at yourself. You make your way to the bedroom and change into your favorite outfit because fuck that if you were going to die in your damn pajamas.

You make your way back to the table and unconsciously go through the steps of sending the file of evidence you’ve collected to Katsuki and Uraraka. You contemplate sending the file to your shared friends for one spite-filled moment, but ultimately decide against it. You set your laptop settings to stay on and unlocked, plug the charger into it, and pull up the note that has passwords to all of your various accounts. Who knows what people might need when you’re gone?

With one last painful glance around the apartment, you head for the door. You slip on your favorite pair of shoes and leave the apartment. You make your way to the roof of the complex, which is a far easier task than you feel like it should have been. You walk to the edge and take off your shoes, placing them neatly off to the side. Climbing up onto the ledge, the wind blows lightly and it actually feels exhilarating as you fully stand up. You startle when your phone begins ringing, and you can’t recall when you slipped it into your pocket. Taking it out, a small bout of manic laughter leaves your lips at the caller ID. When you slide the accept icon, a streak of blood follows. Apparently, your hand hasn’t stopped bleeding and that makes you laugh harder for some reason.

“Hey Love, what’s-” You begin deliriously before being cut off.

“What’s with this email, Sweetheart? H-how did you..” Katsuki with an uncharacteristic quietness to his voice, with feigned confusion to cover the guilt.

Every emotion drains from you in an instant and your grip on your phone tightens, “Don’t play dumb, Katsuki. Everything in that email came directly from your phone.” You say in a tone so cold and emotionless that it makes Katsuki take in a sharp breath, and at the sound, you feel a dulled flicker of pride at catching him off guard.

“Baby-” he starts with a slight shake in his voice, but all the pet name does is make you see red all over again.

“DON’T FUCKING CALL ME THAT WHEN YOU CALL HER THAT TOO!” You scream, and your voice echoes off of the structures around you.

A strangled sort of half laugh, half sob leaves your mouth, and you screw your eyes shut, “Oh my, sorry for yelling.. Uhm, you asked ‘how’ earlier, and I assume you meant to ask fully how I found out. Well, I’ve known that you’ve been seeing her since that first lie you told months ago. It’s sort of crazy to think that for as long as we’ve known each other, you’ve seemed to have forgotten what my Quirk is, Love.” From even-toned to words bathed in malice, your rage and pain-fueled instability makes even you dizzy.

“..Y/N, please.. I.. I love you..” Katsuki says, and your manic laughter returns from how pathetic he sounds.

“It still baffles me that somehow that isn’t a fucking lie, too! You wanna know something, Katsuki? For years, I admired and adored you. For years, I waited for you to want me too! Then, when you finally did want me, I gave you all of my love! I made it all look fucking painless! The unappreciation! The wanting of someone who couldn’t even be bothered to remember my fucking name most of the time! The suffering through my darkest thoughts! Life has put me through so much shit, but fuck it if I wasn’t the fucking greatest!!” You’re breathless by the end of your spiel, more manic laughter mixing with your anguished sobs. The sound of a car honking below you makes you jolt, and you choke on a sharp gasp as your balance goes off-kilter for a moment.

“Y/N, where the fuck are you right now?! I’m on my way home, just-” Katsuki rushes out, and you become conscious of the sound of his car engine revving in the background of the call.

“Tell everyone that I’m sorry and that I love them. I love you, Katsuki Bakugo. Goodbye.” You say with an eerie and quiet calm, and as you bring the phone down from your ear you can hear him screaming until you hang up.

You turn slightly to drop your phone onto your shoes, then turn back to look out over the city. ‘Such a beautiful view..’ You think with a small smile as you let your body tip forward. You close your eyes as you fall, the sound of air rushing past you thundering in your ears. It feels like you’re falling for seconds and decades before everything goes black.

You feel nothing..

No more pain..

No more suffering..

Just the soothing warmth of the black abyss that’s been calling your name for so long.

Note ~ Thank you to the Lovely Anon who sent in the ask, I'm sorry that I got so dark with this one.. Please make sure that you're taking care of yourselves, Lovelies. And if you feel like no one else does, just know that I love and appreciate you. <3