The Universe Listened | Kiribaku

Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home

•Chapter Seventeen•

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He was trying to run. The muscles in his legs were at work, craving a break, as he lifted them high into the air. Sand, it was hard to run in he discovered. For a while he as running with ease, running towards a destination he couldn't see, and he could've sworn he was running on solid ground. But somewhere along the way, the ground changed to sand.

It slowed him down and then he couldn't move anymore. Kirishima tried to wiggle away, tried to use his arms to pull himself out but they sank and found themselves trapped by his sides as the sand began to rise.

He felt it covering his body, each grain pressing into him. It was at his neck and he could feel it piling up towards his chin. That's when the panic burst and exploded and took over. His chest rose and fell at a pace any doctor would deem to be unhealthy and tears filled his eyes to the brim.

And then his mouth was covered. Seconds later, his nose was engulfed and he couldn't breathe. His lungs were yelling at him to just fucking breathe because they were dying, but when he inhaled his lungs filled with sand and he choked up whatever he swallowed.

He was going to die he was going to die he was going toー

It was just a nightmare. Another one of those stupid nightmares he was getting sick and tired of having because they were cutting into his precious sleeping time. He had half a mind to scream his frustrations, to cry about how he's tired of waking up soaked in his own sweat and tears. How he wished he could sleep just one night without being jolted awake, so suddenly and roughly it was beginning to send pain through his body. Kirishima was tired of it all.

But he didn't scream or cry.

Kirishima could make out a figured illuminated by the light flowing in from the window near his bed. As shock from the nightmare began to fade and the world started to register, he could hear what sounded like pen on paper or something of the sort.

"Oh, Shitty Hair, you're awake," Katsuki said. The sound came to a halt. "How're you feeling?"

Kirishima blinked at the question, blinked at the fact that Katsuki was there and he had no idea why. Oh God. Katsuki was in his damn room and he was almost certain that it was a mess because he's been sick and lacked the energy needed to pick up the clothes he stripped from at night because although it was cold outside, the heat his body had been emitting from the fever was horrendous. He'd also never had anyone else in his room before, anyone that wasn't his family or Mina and Kaminari, who were practically family.

"Like shit," he breathed out. "Why're you here?"

Katsuki rose a brow. "I came by to check on you and I guess I got caught up with my homework. Do I need to leave?"

"No," he answered right away with a quick and firm shake of his head. Kirishima realized what he said and how fast he said it, a little too eager perhaps. "I don't wanna be alone right now if I'm being honest."

The writing was back. The taps of the pencil touching the paper whenever he brought it up to start a new word. Kirishima was taught only how the write numbers and letters in his younger years. He wasn't taught how to string them together, it wouldn't do him any good. His name. That's all he knew how to write. In the future, once he was an adult, he'd have to be able to sign things. He was given a card with a section cut out as a way to help guide him.

He remembered using the cream coloured paper with the thick blue lines because the paper everyone else used burned his eyes. A black marker was always his writing tool, never a pencil or pen. The lines they created were too small and light for his eyes to see.