"Be Still, Just for Me" {Bakugo x Reader}

The Night We Met, Part II

yes i'm alive, no this fic isn't abandoned. it never was abandoned nor forgotten about. i've been writing off and on for the past year. for those who kept faith that it would be updated and eventually finished, thank you. for those who doubted me... well. rude 😒

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The celebration on the other side of the outside garden grew quiet and eventually vanished as though muffled by a growing mound of indiscernible cotton. Bushes and creeping vines paused their benign swaying. As the world surrounding Katsuki gradually came to a halt, its energy seemed to seep into his bones and beneath his skin, buzzing and oscillating tortuously.

This isn't real, he thought in desperation as his mouth went dry, eyes bulged, and chest tightened in disbelief. There, barely three meters away from him, stood a ghost shivering under the moonlight in a dress the deep red color of blood. Katsuki blinked, expecting you to vanish like you always did... yet you remained statue-still and staring stunned right back at him.

The glass in his hand slipped out of his trembling fingers, clattering onto the floor. Neither of you flinched as ice and alcohol stained the wood grain underfoot.

He remembered waking up this morning. Going on patrol with Mar. Arguing with Kirishima in the agency hallway. Feeding his cat. Riding his bike over here for his stupid birthday party... No, there was no way that the entire day's events and memories could have been more than an illusory dream.

...Then what kind of sick trick caused a hallucination of you to appear before Katsuki as if taunting him ceaselessly for six months wasn't enough?

Voice hoarse, arid, and strained, he attempted to speak as if hearing his own voice might jolt him out of this mirage. "Are you a nightmare?"

Could you hear him? Would you answer? No, of course not. You never did; spirits couldn't speak.

You winced at his words, his voice uncharacteristically brittle compared to the strong, unwavering tenor you were used to, the sound you dreamed of hearing just one more time. All you wanted to do was run to him and bury your face in his skin and bathe in his warmth and sob in his arms. But cinder blocks tied your feet to the ground. He looked almost scared, as if reaching out to touch him would splinter the tension and he'd crack beneath your fingertips; the fear and anxiety kept you immobile as the device in your shaking hands translated his words.

Peeling your tongue from the roof of your mouth, you dared not blink as you managed to weakly shake your head in denial. "No, Katsuki... I'm not."

More than anything you wanted to capture him, hold onto him, keep him close like a fragile treasure, but tension hung like tepid puddles after a thick rain - the kind that filled your nose and lungs with stale air and upended rot. Don't cry, don't cry yet. If you do, you'll never stop. "W-why a nightmare?"

A bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck and disappeared into the collar of his pressed shirt. He quickly glanced at your hands gripped tightly around the device that somehow far exceeded the accuracy of your phone with its robotic Japanese inflection. But... your voice. It pierced between his ribs like a spear aimed with deadly accuracy to strike with poisonous memories dripping from the sharpened edge.

Commemorating you through the keepsakes was easy; everything observed months ago, he saw again behind closed eyes or whenever he took out his hidden gifts when waves of longing nostalgia washed over him. However, sight was just a single sense out of five. The language barrier became less noticeable and cumbersome over time as he focused on the tone and inflection of your voice. Though your singing and laughter stuck with him, Katsuki lamented that they became harder to recall with every passing day.