No Man's Land 2

Chapter 6 - The Hollow Men

"You should break with your boyfriend" Someone said to him and it sounded like it was ages ago. However yesterday felt like a year ago; Izuku could not really tell how time worked for him anymore.

He still holds bits of his past and they came like a wave during the nighttime: you could not call them nightmares because they were not, Izuku was sure about this.

They were some sort of phobias that started making themselves at home inside Izuku's mind. He was terrified of someone's eyes and he would get mad if you touched his belongings.

Izuku was mostly afraid of losing someone he cared for: he found Shoto looking at him through the night and he would sleep tight. Only for him to wake up with a startled scream and tears and sweat mixing and gliding over his skin.

Was Shoto losing blood? It might have seemed so as Izuku kept screaming for someone to save him.

This and other dreams filled Izuku's mind during the night's hours in which the only sound you could hear were his irregular breath and trashing over the bed.

Jude was used to this, not only with Izuku but with his past patients too. Somehow this time felt special because it was Izuku and Izuku knew how to intrigue people, he knew how to appear like a shining porcelain. In truth he felt like a rotten vase.

How he felt was not important, at least for him, even though his therapist kept telling him to open up. He kept shutting himself more.

Does he not know how to work with resistances? Izuku muttered under the sheets as if it was the most common thing to do.

In some sort of ways it was: Izuku has spent his life trying to get past the walls his patients would create around him and themselves.. It was only natural for him to try and break those walls: seeing someone not being able to, or not wanting to, was driving him crazy.

He wanted to die. At some point in his life he started to ask himself what meaning could it hold? he was just someone in a sea of unknown beings. He started hating his job, his life and those things were almost the same for him: to hate the former and then come to hate the latter was only a matter of when.

Izuku felt someone knock at his door. he cursed under his breath.

Since when did i become like this? He thought, him who was a man's men.

"Izuku, may I get in?" And it was a different voice from the one he was so used to hear. It was not Jude's.

"Who are you?" he asked but he already knew the answer.

The door opened for it to reveal a slim figure, gangly body walking by dragging his feet, an eye covered in a red splotch of scratched skin.

"Don't be silly," he said with a faint smile, "You know who I am, it has been just a couple of years and I have always been with you..."

Izuku's heart hammered in his chest, some god-like figure was messing with his mind, and his eyes! Oh mere perception of another reality, another timeline in which he would have been happy. 

Cursed fate, pending over his head: doomed to see the love, the reason of his life over and over again only for he to vanish the moment he would touch him. A torment of Tantalus applied to his being. What has he done wrong if not to love?

"You are not real." Izuku said, his piercing green eyes burning Shoto's mismatched one.

"Why such a fiery gaze? Those are not the eyes I feel in love with." Todoroki smiled.

Izuku combed his hair but his hand trembled much to his own dislike. He was losing control of his body yet again. He smiled and a tear adorned the gentle feature of his face.

"They must have gave me some medicines I am not aware of... of course! I need to reduce the morphine dose, it makes me crazy, yeah." He muttered as his hand unconsciously went to rub on his right thigh.

"Don't do that, Izuku. You are injuring yourself... If you want, I can go away..." Todoroki expressed his doubts as he stood still against the doorframe.

"YOU WENT AWAY!" Izuku shouted as he slammed his hands over the soft mattress under him. The curly hair bounced and fell ungracefully over his forehead: he was sweaty and he was having something very similar to a panic attack.

Todoroki sighed as he smoothed the surface of the red shirt he was wearing.

"Now, would you calm down for me? I won't go away this time, okay?" Todoroki waltzed to his bed and sat down: the bed moved under his weight.

"You... touch me." And it was some sort of an order because Todoroki obliged and his hand caressed the scarred face of Izuku. Soft, wet skin under his calloused hand.

"You are crying again... it seems I can only make you suffer..." Todoroki said as he tried to retract his hand.

Izuku stopped him and fiercely grabbed his hand, he placed it over his cheek. He reclined his face and lost himself into those familiar hands. He cried like a baby.

"Are you sad?" Todoroki asked once he noticed the drops of tears covering his hand and staining the sheets.

"Very much so." Izuku said.

"Is it because of me?" Todoroki asked with those worried eyes he always had when Izuku was hurt or somewhat injured.

"It is not."

"Then, why are you crying?"

"Because I want to come with you." Izuku whispered and did not dare to look at him in his eyes.

The realization of what Izuku said hit Todoroki much later.

"Do not, It's not such a good place where I am." Todoroki said as he leaned into Izuku, their forehead touching.

"If you are in there, then it's where I want to be." Izuku lifted his gaze and deeply stared into Todoroki's mismatched ones.

"You love me, right?" Todoroki asked out of the blue.

"I do."

"Then live for me, Izuku." He said as he place a chaste kiss over his lips. It tasted of past, of sadness and kindness.

"You can't ask me this... you can't! You don't have any rights to do this to me!" Izuku backed off of him, Todoroki was forced to stand up.

"I can... what is more important is that you can too. You must live, Izuku. I will wait for you on the other side." He smiled.

Todoroki smiled, such smile Izuku never saw. It was beautiful, simply and utterly so.

"I will come to you, Shoto..."

"I know you will, I just want for you to live a little longer. I will stay here." He said as he sat on the cold hospital pavement.

"Where are you, Shoto? You seem so far away from me..."

"In a certain sense I am very much far from you. However, I am here, and you know I am real."

"That I know, I am starting to doubt about myself... Who tells that I am the real one and you are not?"

Todoroki shrugged. "I guess no one does. That's why you need to live for me, because you have to prove them you are the one alive."

"What if I fail? What if I just jump out of the window?"

"Then, I will just catch you."

Todoroki smiled, sad eyes for a sad man; it was the last thing he saw before feeling dizzy. He laid awake in his bed, waiting for this, for everything to end.

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper. 

NOTES

We are here once again! It has been long since we last saw each other... I am sorry. However I think I will start writing again with a more regular rythm. This chapter is a new start and a continuation of the story. 

Hope you liked it! We are walking on the thin line between reality and imagination.