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Eri approaches the door on shaking legs. She breathes, in and out, breath catching in her lungs. Her heart slams against her ribs as she trembles.
“Are you s—”
“Yes.” She cuts Mirio off. “I need to.”
“Alright.” He gives her the kindest, saddest smile. “I’ll be waiting for you out here, okay?”
She nods. “Okay.” For a moment, she hesitates, then dives toward him and wraps her arms around his chest. Through her tears, she tells him, “Thank you for bringing me.”
His arms, big and strong, wrap around her shoulders and pull her close. He kisses the crown of her head. “Of course. I wouldn’t deny you …. I wouldn’t deny you the chance to say goodbye.”
Sniffling once, twice, she pulls free of Mirio’s grip and turns back toward the door. One step, two steps, she brings herself closer to it, close enough to reach out and open it.
“Okay,” she whispers, taking a deep breath in and out. “Be brave, Eri. Be brave.” With one hand, she swipes the tears from her eyes and with the other reaches out and opens the door.
The room she steps into bleeds misery covered up by flowers and cards. No longer is it possible for her to hide the truth buried deep in her mind:
This is the room of a dying man.
He hasn’t yet been moved onto a ventilator, and honestly, he might not be, even though his body is breaking down and the doctors say that’s an eventuality. Death with dignity, once he’s said his good-byes and I-love-yous to everyone he needs to, seems like the kind of choice he would make.
In fact, that’s the reason Eri has waited for so long, long enough that she began to fear that she would be too late and would have missed her chance. She doesn’t want to be the last one, but it’s either that or let him slip away without even trying to see him.
The tears return with a vengeance as she approaches the bed. Damnit, she was supposed to be strong, not start crying like a baby. And yet here she is, standing over him while tears pour from her eyes.
Just one of the many ways they’re alike, she and him.
He’s laid on the bed before her, asleep to the best of her knowledge. His cheeks have hollowed out more since the last time she saw him—even before he was hospitalized, he was already losing weight, although she hadn’t known enough to look and know. Dark shadows and stress lines frame his eyes while nasal cannula and a nasogastric tube strike divisions through his face. His multitude of freckles stand out against skin grown sallow.
She sniffles and screws her eyes shut, one hand coming up to clench at her chest as if that will affect the hollow growing beside her heart.
“Eri?”
Soft and broken, his voice yanks her eyes open and drags her forward until she’s leaning over him, braced against the edge of the bed and hanging on with a white-knuckled grip.
“Izuku,” she cries, voice breaking in the middle. “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”
He lifts one shaking arm and painstakingly cups the side of her head with his hand, fingers threaded through her hair. “Hey. It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize.”
“I do, though.” She blinks and tries to swipe away her tears again. She fails, more just replacing the ones dampening the back of her hand. “I almost waited too long.”
The corners of his mouth twitch up, a faint echo of his former brilliance. “I would wait for you as long as it would take.”
She tries to smile back, bitter salt tainting her attempt. “I don’t think that’s up to either of us.”
“Maybe not.” He lets his hand drop from her face. She catches it on the way down and pulls it close to her chest, over her heart. “But I would have tried.”
She should say something, she needs to say something, needs to explain to him what that means to her, but she can’t. Tears come harder, faster, clogging up her throat and stealing away the air in her lungs. Caving in, she bends forward to rest her head against his still-moving chest.
His other hand begins to card through her hair. Its tremor is stronger and more pronounced than the other, but his motions are steady as he runs his fingers down the side of her head again and again.
Somehow, someway, she exhausts her supply of tears. Even so, she doesn’t speak up, and they just exist, in the room together, her head rising and falling with his every breath. He breathes steadily but there’s a catch and a hitch in it which suggest a downward turn to come.
“I don’t … I don’t know what to say.” Her voice leaves her throat in a procession of jagged pieces.
“You don’t need to say anything.”
She shakes her head. “I do. I do need to say something. I just …. I don’t know how to say it.”
“Take your time. We still have some left.”
“Not as much as I wish we had.” She reaches up and takes his other hand in hers before straightening back up. Both his hands held tight in hers, she takes a deep breath. “I’m not gonna get another chance to say any of this, so I gotta tell you now, yeah?”
He nods, a small, sad smile twisting his lips. “Yeah.”
“I’m—” Her shoulders hitch, and she squeezes his hands as she takes a deep breath and pushes away her tears. “I love you. You’re my hero—not just because you saved me from Chisaki, but you, you taught me how to smile again, and, and you showed me how to love.”
He listens to her, patiently waiting when she needs to pause and find her voice again.
“I owe you so much—I owe you everything.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“No, that’s—” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “I’m everything that I am because of you. You saved me, and you—you—I—”
Why can’t she say what she’s been thinking, considering, ruminating over for weeks now? She picked out her words and put together everything she needed to say and now here she is, trying to tell him, and all her words just come out wrong.
“Eri,” he sighs her name, voice the whisper of wind through autumn leaves. “I love you, too. So much. It has been a pleasure and an honor to watch you grow.”
Somewhere within her, she must be hiding a spare reservoir of tears, because they come forth again like the headgates have opened and the tailwaters spill down her cheeks. Izuku squeezes her hands, grip weakened compared to what it once was.
He continues. “I’m so proud of you. So, so proud. I don’t think I could put it into words if I had a decade to figure it out. You … are an astounding young woman, and ….” He swallows hard. When she looks up, she realizes she’s not the only one crying, his eyes bright with tears as he smiles at her.
“And I’m so very sorry I won’t be there to continue watching you grow.”
She struggles to speak through a throat full of tears and phlegm. “If I’m not allowed to apologize for this, then neither are you.”
“Alright.” The corners of his mouth twitch. “I can—I can accept that.”
Quiet falls in the room, interrupted only by the buzz of the lights, the hum of the machinery, and their sniffles.
Eri is the one to break it.
“I love you. I’ll love you, forever and always. I—I’ll carry you with me in my heart, and then, then you won’t really be dead, right? As long as I’m here … so are you.”
“That’s right. I love you too, forever and always. I wish ….” He takes a deep, shuddering breath and speaks through tear-thickened voice. “I wish I could be here for you in person, for as long as you want me to be, but the world has a different idea.”
She smiles at him through a cascade of tears. “That’s okay. I’ll just …. I’ll carry you right here—“—she holds his hand next to her heart—“and I’ll remember that, that you love me and … and that will be enough.”
He tilts his head, the pillows behind him tugging at his curls. “I wish it didn’t have to be.”
“I know.”
She leans forward and presses a kiss to his forehead. He gently extricates his hands from hers and slides his arms around her shoulders. Her arms snake under his back, and shaking, they cling to each other.
Time runs out, as it is wont to do. Not for him, not yet, but soon.
No, it runs out for Eri when Mirio knocks on the door, a quick rhythm of raps that they chose to signify when visiting hours were ending.
“I have to go,” she whispers into his ear. “I’m so, so sorry—I wish I had the guts to visit sooner, I wish I didn’t, I wish I didn’t live so far away, I wish I didn’t have to go to school this week, I wish my teachers would let me skip.”
“It’s okay,” he whispers back, arms tightening briefly around her. “I’ll carry you with me, too.”