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A/N: Hi! This is the prologue to the DabiBaku (per your votes) story that I'll be uploading to AO3 as my first work there. I based this fic from a mix of an RP I did with a friend a while back and a movie I saw called The Wildling. Hope you like it. It's angsty and depressing.

Brother gifted him a mouse. 

It's a tiny little thing, dark fur damp from the evening rain. Katsuki has never seen a wild animal before---not in person; only ever in books. He said he'd plucked him from a rose bush outside, the very one that Katsuki could see from his bedroom window. Brother had brought him flowers from the bush before, allowed Katsuki to indulge in the soft petals and the sweet scent of them. He didn't know that little critters like this lived in them. 

"He's small and soft and fragile...just like you, little brother. I think he'd like to be your friend." Brother had said. The little mouse didn't seem very afraid, sitting comfortably in the wide palm of Brother's hand. Perhaps he was just happy to be somewhere warm and dry. Katsuki sometimes wished he could feel the rain on his skin---just so he could know what it felt like. Brother tells him often that he isn't missing anything but even so, Katsuki would like to experience outside for himself just once. 

"You're ill, Katsuki. It isn't safe for you outside." 

At least Brother tries to make it bearable for him. Teaches him things to make him smarter. Brings him plenty of toys and puzzles and books. And now, he's brought him a fuzzy little friend to keep him company during his long days, weeks, months, years in this personal quarantine. 

He often wonders how Brother doesn't get sick outside, but Brother just tells him that his body is much stronger than Katsuki's own. But Katsuki is already six years old. Surely his body had grown stronger.

Brother's fingers card through Katsuki's unkempt hair and he offers him a smile. It's as much an answer as he'll ever receive.

"We'll have to give him a name, sweetheart. What would you like to call him?"

Katsuki decides that his new friend will be called Basil. 

# 

Today was supposed to be a special day. It's the only time of year that Katsuki tends to feel any real joy at all, even more so than when Brother makes his favorite meal for him. On days like today he'd wake up to Brother singing a soft song for him, face alight by the glow of candles in the dim morning light. Katsuki had counted twelve this time, all shoved down into the bare chocolate cake that was poised in Brother's hands. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and makes his wish upon the end of Brother's song---though he knows very well that it won't come true. He's made the same wish every year and nothing ever changes but maybe---just maybe this time will be different. If he could just be stronger, then Brother could take him outside and he could be normal. Brother often tells him about other children in public schools and playgrounds; he only ever mentions them to call them cesspools for disease and filth. He says that Katsuki is different. That he is special, just like today is supposed to be. 

But Basil didn't wake up today. 

And today doesn't feel so special anymore. 

He usually waited for Katsuki to feed him around this time, eager to receive his daily dose of affection in way of soft and gentle strokes to his furry little head but he's stiff and cold. Katsuki asks Brother if he's sick and if they can get him medicine but Brother just takes him from his pen to wrap in one of the cloth napkins from the table. He kneels down to eye level with Katsuki, an odd look of sympathy that Katsuki has never seen from him before.