Just A Myth | Shota Aizawa

Chapter 40

Third person pov

There are flashes that Kurogiri struggles to cling to. He claws at them like an irritable cat, dragging them closer and closer until he's sure they won't slip away from him again. They're slim to nothing, but they're evidence of an existence before what he is now. He collects them like a greedy child collects candy from a piñata at someone else's birthday party. 

They're jagged shards that don't quite fit together, but they all paint their own individual pictures anyway. He does not tell anyone he has them. They'd be taken from him if he did-- wiped away and out of reach.

A cloudy sky with the muffled sound of laughter surrounding him, along with light banter he can't quite make out. The taste of a strawberry milkshake on his tongue. An orange tabby under an umbrella, then shoved into a brightly colored backpack by hands that are solid, real, and not shrouded in cold purple mist. Shiny blonde hair. Dark eyes rolling in exasperation. Something soft and damp under his hands, carrying him higher and higher.

He was someone in the same way that Tomura was someone once. He takes solace in that, reassures himself that what he's doing is right. That if he helps Tomura find himself again, maybe that means he's allowed to find himself in the process as well. It's like a justification. A loophole in his programming that he can slip through and revel in. 

He lets himself drift through visions of baby blue, pencils on pop quizzes, one sushi roll too many shoved in his mouth. Kurogiri hunts and digs and begs for more slivers of himself, and he knows Tomura does the same.

Tomura is different now, with his dark hair and lighter eyes. His irritability seems entirely gone now, and all that's left behind is a mellow kindness and the vague madness that comes with not knowing. Kind is not a word Kurogiri had ever thought he'd use to describe his charge. 

Kurogiri is proud of him and how far he's comes, something warm bursting forth in his chest without him meaning it to. Kurogiri clings onto that too. 

His emotions are always scant and when they slip between his fingers like fine grains of sand, he's always left feeling cold and empty. He's getting better at holding onto them these days, however. The positive lasts longer than the negative as he coaxes Tomura back into himself. Kurogiri thinks this is as close to a miracle as he'll ever get. Though, he's wary of it all. He knows that good things always come crashing back down.

He almost thinks they're going to when Tomura talks to Stain. Kurogiri is surprised by how easily he channels his past impatience. Tomura lets himself shriek, lets himself scratch, lets his eyes narrow into dangerous slits. His words are hissed out with vehemence. 

Kurogiri continues to polish glasses behind the bar and pretends it doesn't feel like all the air in the room has been sucked out when Sensei sighs from the television, disappointment so palpable in the air that it's suffocating. Tomura does not falter in his act. 

Stain had said no, that he wouldn't join them. A shame according to Sensei, who voices his displeasure very clearly for Tomura to hear. His tone is more warning and more dangerous than usual, and ice slides down Kurogiri's spine when he realizes what that means. He may not remember who he was before he was Kurogiri but that does not mean he is stupid. 

Sensei knows something. It's clear as day in his voice, which rasps with an undertone of venom that isn't usually there. It's a warning. He's onto them, and Kurogiri's mouth feels dry.

Silence surrounds them. Kurogiri feels like he's dizzy, the knowledge that Sensei knows something eating at him. He must've slipped up at some point. He knows Tomura hasn't. Tomura has been perfectly disciplined, painstakingly clever now that his head is cleared of whatever plagued it before.