PAPER FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

chapter 9

' i did something bad '

━━━━━

It's not raining today.

But raindrops are falling from her eyes and thunderstorms are raging inside her body, a grey cloud of grief has obscured her vision, and she doesn't even mind that Dabi has finished all the tasks and it's only when Kurogiri warps them back to the base that she composes herself and maintains the façade of an ice queen.

It's not snowing today.

But there's a snowstorm inside her soul making frost crawl unto her heart and pelting her body with ice until she's nothing but a snow woman spewing snowflakes from her mouth. It's a little too late to build the façade again because the red has surfaced on her face and nothing can erase it. Blizzards are raging inside her soul leaving nothing but a hollow raindrop in its midst.

It's not cloudy today.

But it feels as if everything is obscure, covered by clumps and clouds of cotton candy grey clouds and she's nothing but blind and deaf to the world around her and their words are nothing but white noise to her ears. Tomura is shaking her by the shoulders, inquiring as to what happened (his hands, eight fingers on her so she doesn't disintegrate), but she doesn't respond. No sound escapes her mouth and Tomura is screaming no no no no and she wants to wrap him in an embrace, because that's exactly what she kept on screaming earlier.

"Tomura, stop scratching your neck," she tells him. "Tomoe hates that." Hated.

"And also," she said and looked around the room seeing the confused, and almost relieved faces of the other villains. "Tomoe wanted me to tell you something. But I cannot handle that for now, so later... maybe... please."

A nod and she was gone again.

━ × ━

Bare white walls, sparse decorations limited to two pots of bonsai on top of a two compartment white bookshelf containing a varied assortment of books, an aquarium with a tropical fish inside propped next to his bed- a plush king sized object with white bedsheets, striped azure pillows and a baby blue blanket. The rest of the room was filled with one, circular, white rug and sky blue curtains.

It screamed Tomoe everywhere. From the bed to the white bedside table with two drawers a chair, and a pastel blue lampshade with gold for a base and same colors for embellishment. Kaede's never quite realized that he was fond of the color blue and it feels horrible to even think that it's fitting 'cause blue things for a blue boy.

He had one bed, two bedside tables and a life filled of thousands of sufferings. And one friend, one brother who was grieving and wanted him back most of all.

Kaede is curled up in his bed, the blanket pulled to her neck and still damping the bedsheets with tears. Grief is a very wretched thing and has five stages. Five stages to which she skipped denial and went straight to bargaining.

Void of pride, full of desperation that seeped from where her heart was torn by the loss.

Five minutes, she counted, but her axis wouldn't straighten itself.

Then the long hand of the clock perched in between the bonsai continued to tick and tock until she counted ten minutes and forty seven seconds. When she left Tomoe's body, algor mortis- the cooling of the body after death- had begun to settle, but the thought of his disappearance still wasn't settling at the bottom of her thoughts.

She had believed, known that he was dead, but the reality that her life was moving on without him was something that shook her to the very core.

Another twenty minutes passed and tears were still falling from her eyes like the snow and rain she hated so much. Almost all of her life, she was so detached from others, always buoyant of grief, but after Tomoe. Tomoe who stood by her side forever. She was drowning.