Chapter Text
Hizashi is sure he’s dead. He knows he died. He’d prepared for it, accepted it. He’s completely at peace with his life ending the way it has.
So why does he feel the need to open his eyes?
Why is he in pain? He thought death meant the end of pain, and suffering. Even if there is an afterlife. Is he in hell? He thought he’d been a good person. Good enough not to be condemned to hell, anyway. Sure, he had the odd indulgence, but who didn’t?
Bummer. He’s going to live out the rest of eternity in pain. It was still worth it, for Shouta.
But he still wants to open his eyes. Even if all he sees is hellfire, he has this strange urge. Like everything will change once he opens them.
So he struggles. His eyelids feel weighed down, and prising them open takes a monumental effort. As soon as he gets them open, he slams them closed again. Light - too much light, too bright. His head hurts. Why couldn’t he just have been allowed to sleep forever? Is it too much to ask, after what he’s been through?
There’s someone holding his hand. It’s warm. Maybe if he can get his eyes open, he can thank that person for being so warm, and they’ll keep holding his hand.
It’s not very good logic. Shouta would be ashamed.
He peels his eyes back open and lets them adjust. A bright blur turns into more focused shapes and colours, the world in front of him slowly coming to life.
A ceiling. What a letdown. The ceiling can’t be holding his hand.
Then a shape leans over him. Dark and tall. When the features start to focus, he thinks to himself that they are very handsome features. Oh, the person’s mouth is moving. Hizashi reads his lips.
I’m not handsome. Woah. A mind reader. Radical. The mind reader rolls his eyes and disappears. Hizashi is disappointed, until he appears again, and slides something into Hizashi’s ears. The silent world is no longer silent.
“Hizashi.”
Ah, that’s his name. He’s Hizashi, and Mr Handsome Mind Reader is…
Shouta.
He sits up, suddenly, eyes wide. Shouta’s here. Shouta shouldn’t be here, because Hizashi is dead, and Shouta shouldn’t be.
“Hey. Lie back down, idiot. You’re still hurt.” Shouta looks annoyed, and he puts his hands on Hizashi’s shoulders to force him back down. Hizashi tries to think back - what does he remember?
The final day of his life. The alleyway. The villain. Dying.
Hizashi raises a hand to his throat, feeling bandages there. His eyes widen.
“Am I… alive?” He asks, his voice small and wobbling. Shouta raises the head of the bed up and takes Hizashi’s hand again. It feels nice. It feels alive.
“You are. I take it that wasn’t your intention?” Shouta asks, his tone serious. Hizashi nods, because it’s true. He intended to die in that alleyway.
He’s alive. Not only is he alive, but Shouta is also alive. And it’s not January 19th anymore. A sob bubbles up in his throat. And then another one, and another one, until he’s outright blubbering. His brain can’t catch up with this, after a hundred and sixty one days of suffering, he can’t handle it, everything is short circuiting, it’s too much. He’s completely overwhelmed. And his sobbing builds and builds.
He digs his nails into his forehead and starts to scream. Everything’s a blur. It’s like his brain is exploding in his skull, the pressure is so immense, and he can’t think, he can’t breathe-
He can vaguely hear Shouta, and others, around him. Shouta sounds worried - You shouldn’t let her take advantage like Mic will be joining us It’s in case you explode Why the hell did you call What’s wrong What the hell are you Shit Are you feeling okay That’s not like you It better not waste Stop that You aren’t fooling I can take you for a date Are you alright Hizashi-
Hizashi’s vision fades back into darkness, Shouta’s voice on a loop in his head.
When he wakes again, the lights have been dimmed. He’s in a hospital room, he realises. Of course he is. He survived. It’s not January 19th. How on earth is he alive?
“Hizashi.” Shouta’s still here. He’s pressing his lips together, and his eyebrows are bunched up in worry. Hizashi wants to kiss between his brows and smooth out the lines. “Do you remember what happened?”
“In the alley, or when I woke up before?” Hizashi asks. His voice is raspy. It hurts to speak. His head is pounding.
“Either. Both.” Shouta says. He picks up a glass of water and hands it to Hizashi, who sips it. The cool liquid feels like heaven going down.
“I freaked out because I didn’t expect being alive.” And he doesn't know how to handle going off the beaten path anymore. He doesn't know how to handle it not being January 19th. But Shouta won’t understand if he says that. “I was stabbed by a villain.”
“You died.” Shouta croaks. He sounds like he’s been crying, even though that’s impossible with his dry eye. “Flatlined a couple of times, in surgery. If I hadn’t gotten you straight to the hospital, they wouldn’t have been able to get your heart going again. The surgeon said the only reason you didn’t die right away was all the scar tissue on your neck. It’s so thick. It protected the jugular enough that you didn’t immediately bleed out.”
Hizashi can’t help it. He starts to laugh, little giggles at first, and then raucous laughter. It’s so ironic. The only reason he survived, the only reason the villain was apprehended without any kills that night, is because of the last five and a half months of suffering. If he hadn’t died over and over in that alley, he wouldn’t have had those scars, and he really would have died for good.
He’s almost glad he didn’t figure it out right away. If he had, he’d be dead right now.
“It’s not funny!” Shouta snaps, and his angry tone is enough to cut off Hizashi’s laughter. His hands are clenching his trousers and he’s gritting his teeth hard, glaring at Hizashi. “It’s not. You died. I was scared. You were dying in my arms and it terrified me.”
Hizashi is silent. He knows what that feels like. The terror of losing the person you love. He’s been going through that terror constantly for a long time. And now he doesn’t know how not to be scared.
Laughing has made his throat burn. He swallows.
“How long have I been out?” He decides to change the subject.
“Two weeks.” Shouta runs a hand over his face. He sure looks like he hasn’t slept for two weeks. Or shaved. “You woke up yesterday and started screaming. You pulled some stitches. Your quirk might not be as powerful as it was before.”
Hizashi hums and nods. He’s not as upset by that as he thought he would be. In a way, this is his USJ. There’s a price to pay for staying alive. He’ll pay it, as long as it means he gets to stay with Shouta.
There’s a silence, then, heavy with things unsaid. Surely, Shouta knows something's up? The tally marks on his arms, the sudden new scars, him knowing the villain was going to be there, knowing he would die. Isn’t it suspicious? Doesn’t Shouta want to know?
“...It was very rude of you to kiss me knowing I wouldn’t remember it.” Shouta says suddenly, and Hizashi freezes, his heart dropping to the pit of his stomach. How does Shouta know about that?! Shouta’s eyebrows are raised. He looks amused.
“H..How… wha… you… remember?” Hizashi splutters.
“Some of it. Not every day. I remembered once it hit midnight. Nobody else remembers anything. I only remember the days that were very different. The day you convinced me of what was happening, and I had to leave to reset the day and save the civilians. The day you kissed me. The days you stayed home. And the day you confessed. I remember ten days. But the marks on your arms…” Shouta takes a breath. “Hizashi. How long were you stuck?”
So Shouta hadn’t wanted to count the tally marks. Understandable. It wasn’t a nice sight. When Hizashi glances down, he sees that his arms are clean. But he doesn’t need the marks to remember.
“A hundred and sixty one days. A hundred and sixty two, if you count the last day.” Hizashi says softly. Shouta sucks in a breath, and he reaches forward to take Hizashi’s hand again.
“That’s… fuck. Hizashi, how are you still sane?” He asks. Hizashi looks down at their hands. Oh, right, Shouta remembers the confession. The kiss. Shouta feels the same way. This is how fifteen years of pining ends.
“I don’t know that I am, Shouta.” Hizashi whispers. His voice is shaky. His head feels less like it wants to explode, but he’s on edge. Like every nerve is alive and jumpy, ready to get him out of harm’s way. Even though nothing here can hurt him.
“...We’ll work on it.” Shouta says. Because what else can they do? It’s over, but it’s not really over. Shouta is safe, the villain is gone, but Hizashi’s mind is still haunted. Maybe it always will be.
“Do you know why you were stuck in the loop?” Shouta asks then, changing the subject. Hizashi shakes his head. Figuring that out had always been low priority compared to saving Shouta. “We haven’t been able to figure that out, either.”
“You haven’t? It’s not part of the villain’s quirk?” Hizashi questions. Shouta sighs.
“No. As far as the villain knows, that January 19th was the same as any other. Going about murdering people. He had no idea about you.” He says, his tone worried and his eyebrows pinched. “So why…?”
Hizashi brings Shouta’s hand up to his mouth and kisses it. Shouta’s skin is warm. Alive.
“I don’t think it matters.” Hizashi says. At Shouta’s visible confusion, he continues. “All I ever cared about was keeping you alive.”
“...I see. That final day. You intended to die for me.” Shouta acknowledges. Hizashi nods, and Shouta leans forward. He presses their foreheads together. “I would say that I don’t want you to ever pull shit like that again. But I know I’d do the same. I’d die for you any day, Hizashi. It would be hypocritical for me to condemn your choice.”
Hizashi’s heart thrums in his chest. Shouta being so close - it’s more than he could ever have dreamed. Shouta makes it better by leaning in more and kissing him.
Maybe they’ll never know why Hizashi was stuck like that. Maybe it was the quirk of someone he bumped into. Maybe it was a specific quirk - repeating the same day over and over, the day your soulmate dies in tragic circumstances. Maybe it was Hizashi’s own secondary quirk. Maybe it was just some bizarre twist of fate, a game played by unknown gods, pitting Hizashi’s sanity against his love for Shouta.
And maybe it doesn’t matter.
So long as they’re together.
A year passes.
It’s the most difficult year of Hizashi’s life, maybe excluding the year Oboro died.
He’s off radio work for two months, teaching work for four months, and hero work for seven months. It’s a long time, but after two attempts to go back when he wasn’t ready end in disaster, he has to concede that his therapist knows better than he does. He’s not ready to face the students, the staff room, all those places he repeated over and over. And he’s not ready to face down villains again. He’s scared of the dark. He’s scared of the cold. He’s scared of frost and blood and knives.
And although he expected recovery to be a slow process, he still gets frustrated with himself. He’s a grown man. He shouldn’t be having flashbacks and panic attacks at the smell of burnt toast or when certain songs come on the radio. More than once he ends up in Shouta’s arms, sobbing, screaming, asking why he’s like this, why can’t he just be better? Why is it all so hard?
“It’s because you’re strong, sunshine.” Shouta murmurs, holding Hizashi tight. “It’s because you survived. That’s what scars mean, physical ones and mental ones. They mean you survived, and you’re here with me.”
Things get better when they add Eri to their family. She doesn’t know the details of why Hizashi is the way he is, but she understands it. She’s traumatised, too. And when Hizashi holds her through her nightmares, he can’t help but wonder if this was part of the plan. If the whole time loop ordeal was to help him help Eri.
If it was, he thinks it was worth it.
Things get better. It takes time and therapy and even medication, but things get better. He steadily starts back at all his jobs. Shouta makes sure he doesn’t take on too much at once. Nemuri helps out, too. She’s a good friend, though she scolds him a few times for being so sweet to her only when he was sure he was about to die.
Winter rolls around again. It’s hard, at first, not to associate the cold and snow and frost with the events of the alley. He spends a lot of time in bed, bundled up against the cold, trying not to think. But then Eri invites him out ice skating, and it’s so much fun. The cold memories of the alley are steadily replaced with cold memories of fun. Of love.
And then it’s January 19th again. A whole year later. That dreaded date.
Hizashi wakes as the sun hits his eyes. It’s a Saturday, so he’s slept in after his radio show. There’s no alarm to wake up to. No vibrating. He’s warm. It’s a beautiful day. He reaches over Shouta’s still sleeping body and fetches his hearing aids. When he slides them in, beautiful birdsong reaches his ears. He slides back down under the covers and wraps his arms back around Shouta, who turns to face him.
Shouta’s dark eyes open for a few moments. When he sees Hizashi, he smiles sleepily, warmly, and then closes his eyes again to return to sleeping. Hizashi exhales.
It’s late morning, and the radio switches on, on its lowest volume. To wake them slowly. In a strange twist, it’s the same song that first played in the kitchen last year. Hizashi’s not scared of it anymore. Daði Freyr’s smooth low voice makes him smile.
When we are together, there isn’t anywhere that I would rather be.
Yes, Hizashi thinks, pulling Shouta closer. Today will be a good day.