Alone | TodoBaku Angst One-Shots

3 | Fluctuating Waves

Before the silver crease of the distant, star-speckled profound wading above the gray arcs bleeding onto the shore stood Todoroki. As though entranced, he simply watched as the spools of a stormy gray rose up and shattered across the silvery sand at his feet. A twinge of pain leaked through his chest as he glanced up at the scintillating stars, rocking his heart back and forth in a violent war of vacillation.

So this is the path that's illuminated for me... Todoroki thought to himself while stepping into the reach of the waves. You told me that there's still light during the times when it's all dark. You were right, Katsuki. The light that's guiding me now... His ankles were bitten by the frigid waves, and in what felt like a mere heartbeat, his body was swallowed up by the ocean of light and dark. This feeling again... I can't feel anything but this awful feeling. It just grows with every moment that passes. It won't go away... A kind of pain that makes me want to tear into my chest. But...I'm doing this all to myself.

Todoroki's chest tightened as the instinctive urge to open his mouth and flood his lungs with air gripped his senses. He swallowed thickly, and his chest spasmed while his body was dragged into the abyss below. His hollow body writhed, imploring that it be filled with air again.

Every road and every corner just ends up being a dead end. Where am I supposed to go? I'm lost. I can't see anything but a sea of dead ends. 'Maybe tomorrow, something will change.' But it never does. I'm tired... I surrender. This is the easiest path. I've spun around in the same circles over and over again to no avail so many times that I've been sick to my stomach each time; I feel like throwing up, but nothing ever comes up, so I keep shoving misery down my throat until I can make myself do it. But no matter how many times I torture myself to try and get a moment of respite afterwards, my feet just keep sinking, and it just keeps getting harder to walk.

A relentless ringing reverberated through Todoroki's head as the pressure sinking its clear fangs into his skull was only augmented. His lungs burned, and they writhed with his body, but everything but the pain inside of him was insidiously slowed and dimmed.

I'm so sick of being alive, Katsuki... I'm so sick of feeling empty. I'm so sick of forcing myself to get up. You're my husband, and yet, I couldn't even love you. I did... I loved you with all my heart, but that was swallowed up by these fluctuating waves. I neglected you... I didn't mean to. I isolated myself. I stopped doing anything. But...you were always there for me. Katsuki... It hurts. It hurts so much... You always stayed strong for me. Always... Of course. Always... You always gave me a hand when I needed it the most. Please... I don't want to die alone. Help... Katsuki, please help... I don't want to die. As long as you're here with me, I don't want to die yet. Please... It hurts. I can't take this. You always saved me... Katsuki, please help... Please help me... I'm drowning, and I don't know how to get out. I can't on my own. I can't... I...

As Todoroki's consciousness was suffocated, he felt the warm embrace of an arm wrapping around his torso, and the firm tenacity of a hand grasping his. He couldn't remember being pulled up from the intoxicating waves of the daunting, gray ocean, but when he opened his eyes and gasped for air, he no longer saw the night sky swimming above his head. Instead, he saw a bath of blinding white lights.

Where am I? I... I'm... That's right... He's not... I...really was a fool. You've always been with me. That's why...I'm alive. Even though you're just a memory... Even though I'm the reason why you took your own life... Even though I can't even apologize to you for being so selfish when you needed me the most... You've always been the one saving me. You've kept my head above those fluctuating waves countless times. You've forced me to cough up the water in my lungs before I've been able to drown. I'm beginning to wonder if this is my real punishment...for being a failure as your husband. No matter how many times I punish myself to the point of being desperate to die, I can never fucking die...

Those waves are making me sick again. Constantly being filled with that tantalizing, noxious water, and then forced back into clarity and a thread of the instinctive desire not to die—to fight to breathe again, no matter what. Back and forth, back and forth... Like a broken metronome. The moment I can see Death reaching its hand towards me, I kick and scream to keep living, begging for someone to save me. But then when I'm saved, I wish I had been put out of my misery. This whole time, I've been convinced that you've been saving me because you want me to live and get better. Because you love me. Because you're too kind to me to want anything bad to happen to me. But...that's just not realistic, is it?

Todoroki subliminally stared at the nurse in front of him, but he could not hear her. He couldn't make out her face, and he couldn't feel her hands on his.

You had every right to hate me, Katsuki. You had every right to relapse back into the drugs that killed you to escape from me. You had every right not to leave any notes behind... To just disappear like that. The last memory I have of you... We were fighting because I wanted to leave but wouldn't tell you where I was going. I wanted to die, but you died instead... You wouldn't let me die. You wouldn't let me leave. I thought you were protecting me out of fear of losing me, and at first, I tried to convince myself that you overdosed on accident. That you just wanted to get a moment of respite and took too much from no longer having the tolerance to it that you used to. But I was a fool to think that. No one thinks it was a suicide but me, but I'm not blinded by wishful thinking anymore.

You are my ocean, Katsuki. How long...are you going to play with your food?