17 | Broken Melody

                                    

                                          
Katsuki Bakugou


                          
After cautiously folding the maroon colored note in half horizontally, I place it on the table beside Todoroki's futon; since my crease wasn't compressed incredibly hard, the paper splays open slowly, as if it's about to speak to me. For a moment, I stare at its gradual movement of the top fold of the paper drawing back.
                          
Meandering towards the elegant grand piano that Todoroki somehow managed to place in our dorm (honestly, I do not have the slightest idea as to how he crammed that big-ass piano through the door without disassembling and reassembling it—it would take far more than one single hour to reassemble an entire goddamn piano), I brush my hand across the soft yellow cushion of the sleek black stool. With a sigh, I sit myself down at the piano, as if I'm going to begin orchestrating some horrendous conglomeration of a tune of twisted and tangled notes bickering back and forth like the petty arguments I have with my mom. My eyes are almost level with the bamboo-green cover of the somewhat tall book leaning against the music desk of the piano, and as I lay my fingers on the soft cover, I hesitate.
                          
It almost feels wrong to do this, I find myself thinking with one thumb cradling the first page of the book beneath the cover. I know he wanted me to, but I still can't help but think that I'm gonna be looking at something I was never meant to see. This seems like a breach of privacy to me. I ain't one to snoop through someone else's belongings. Tch. C'mon, Katsuki...don't be a wuss.
                          
As the book flutters open with the scent of the musty pages wafting into my nose, I swiftly realize that the dedication page is written by Todoroki's mother, in which she has dedicated the book to her son. Turning to the next page, I find that it's a blank music sheet. I turn to the next and happen upon the very same outcome.
                          
Course you'd make me go on a wild goose chase to find what you wanted me to find. Whatever. It's not like I have anything better to be doing, and even the damn teacher told me to go back to my dorm for the night. Speaking of our teacher... How the hell does he expect me to rest after what happened? I still can't completely believe it—how could I? Everything happened so fast, like they all say. When I saw you again, it never crossed my mind that you were trying to suppress the urge to die. You were so detached from reality that I figured you couldn't feel anything. Then I converted that thought into a belief. That belief evolved into a festering bed of malice. It never occurred to me that me being an asshat was literally dictating your life. God, I can't get you off my mind, Shouto. Honestly, my thoughts of him are like a virus infiltrating my main stream of thought and multiplying in a frantic frenzy. Tch. Once I've finished scouring through this book and I unlock whatever's behind here, I'll probably go and cry myself to sleep like a damn loser. Hell, I'm crying even now, and at this point, I feel like I cry more than Deku. That damn nerd always had something to cry about—even when he was smiling. That's why I always wanted to protect him... That is, until Shouto gingerly declared that he loved him.
                          
Meticulously turning through each individual page of the one-hundred page book, I figure that Todoroki is the type of person to practically make his messages serendipitous to stumble upon unless otherwise specified. Then again, a thought at the back of my head reminds me that he's one of the most oblivious people that I know. Regardless of my back burner thoughts, I continue thumbing through every page, as if to scan for a method to decode a cryptic passage.
                          
Finally, once I reach the final four pages of the book, I can see a plethora of notes drawn with black ink within and intersecting the lines. Dammit, of course it's basically on the last page—well, it is on the last page, but it starts on the fourth to last. I guess I should be glad it's here in the first place. Huh. I wonder if this was what Shouto was playing earlier, or if it's some melancholic melody to remind me that he's fucking gone, and it's entirely my goddamn fault... Christ, just read it, Katsuki.