Quirks of the Soul

If only

"Kacchan," he heard.
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Katsuki almost gave himself whiplash as he looked towards Izuku, startled and hopeful at the same time. Izuku had regained consciousness.

However, he was bound to be disappointed. Izuku's laid motionless on the bed, not a sign that anything had changed. He should've known better than to hope. Katsuki's hand unwittingly clenched down on the bed sheet. Looks like he'd wanted to hear Izuku's voice so badly that he'd hallucinated it.

Katsuki swallowed, feeling distressed.

"Please, Izuku," he whispered, as if sharing a secret only between the two of them, "I'll do anything for you to come back. I deserve to suffer for what you've gone through, but you must come back to me first. Please. Please, Izuku."

The time seemed to pass by in a blur. It was silent. Muted. He felt like he had been transported back in time to Izuku's apartment. Katsuki had always been prone to noise. His life was basically filled with sounds and explosions. Izuku's noisy muttering in the classrooms, laughter and shouted words.

The silence rang loudly in his ear. It was deafening. It was so, so quiet. Katsuki latched onto the fact that he could hear Izuku's steady breaths. He hated the silence more than ever, but he loved it at the same time.

He could still hear Izuku's breathing, and he'd never been so relieved.

Katsuki felt like his soul was quiet. He felt chill and frost running through his veins. He felt like he was trapped in a dark void. It was consuming him. Devouring his thoughts, his emotions. Engulfing him in silence. The shadows of his heart were coming back to haunt him.

It taunted him.

The voice mocked him. Telling him what he could have done. Whispering the words, if only you'd been home quicker, if only you were a better person, if only, if only.

Katsuki felt like he was stuck. He was trapped in the never-ending loop of distress. The thoughts churned incessantly within his mind.

When he tried to distract himself with something else, he realized that the hospital room was just shades of white, and he fucking hated it.

Katsuki recalled that he'd once heard a person describe white as a shade, not a color, but he'd scoffed at them. To the him back then, white was obviously a fucking color, but who knew the day would come that he'd take back his words. He'd never experienced the feeling that only white could bring.

Some said white was the color of purity, of innocence. Maybe it was jut him that felt this way. The shades of white felt like they were burning. It felt like it was scorching itself on his retina. Even the room was rejecting him. Was he so sure that Izuku wouldn't as well? It felt like the room was asking him: How dare he blemish the innocence? How dare he press his black heart on the white of Izuku's marring it forever? Staining it black, black, black.

Looking at Izuku trapped in this white hell, Katsuki thought to himself that if he could, he'd whisk Izuku away, bring him back to comfort, to a life filled with color and joy. He'd give Izuku whatever he wanted and would stay by his side to right his wrongs.