31 | Crossfire of Darkness and Light

                                    

                                          
Katsuki Bakugou


                          
The last scrap of my memories that I manage to recover is the booming crack of a gun roaring through my ears. After that, the world crumbles away into a hazardous abyss of glass shards and suffocating smoke. Squirming its way into the void of my mind is a ceaseless, disorienting wave of blinking twinges of pain coursing through the back of my head.
                          
Wait a minute, I realize abruptly as the bulging bursts of pain slamming against my head register into my mind, I'm not dead? God, this pain. Oi...it ain't even in my temple? What the hell happened? Where am I? I need answers, dammit!
                          
Although my eyelids are recalcitrant to returning to their neutral positions from being closed down, I rip them open and drown my eyes with the scalding white light of the infirmary. I blink fervently as the sound surrounding me seeps into my consciousness.
                          
"...chan? Kacchan!" Deku squeaks, frantically waving his hands in front of my face. "Hey. H-Hey, Kacchan." He retreats back from the infirmary bed I'm currently resting in with a sheepish grin. "I'm so glad you're awake. Uh, I'll stop talking..."
                          
Shit. "Damn, give me a moment to process what the hell is going on," I groan, sitting up and peering around the room. I know you're gonna ask me what happened, but I can't... Should I tell you the truth? No. I don't even know what happened. Whatever Shouto was saying degraded into some contradictory crap. But in the end, he seemed to be insinuating something. Now, what the hell did he say? My memory is so damn hazy.
                          
"Love hurts, doesn't it? Loving and losing, losing and loving... I wonder if you'll find it better to have loved and lost, or never to have loved at all, Katsuki."
                          
Taking a moment to recollect the contemptible events which transpired prior to Todoroki stating his abhorrent farewell to me with his countenance unfazed, I snap my eyes shut again. I don't regret loving you, Shouto—I don't care that you claim 'Shouto Todoroki' to have been liquidated because you are and will always be Shouto to me. Even if you conceded with the enemy and became the one I sought to pursue, I know you were hurting inside. Every damn word I said was another blade being dragged across your mind. I refuse to believe that you desired any harm when you first joined the villains. The existence of a naïve heart isn't easily replicated. Even so, I'm a goddamn capricious train wreck without you. But coming to terms with the fact that my nemesis is the one I love that committed suicide two years ago that sided with the villains and feigned being a hero at U.A. is twisting a dagger through my heart. If I never loved you...would you and Deku have been a happy couple right now? Wasn't I at least a major factor into the reason why Shouto complied with the villains? He might never have become a traitor or villain. The three of us could have prospered together. If I never...loved you. No. I was the spark, tinder, and gasoline to this spawn of Satan I summoned. By loving you, you've scraped away the grime that covered my eyes. 
                          
Although still deeply entwined by my web of thoughts, I open my mouth to speak while staring down at the wrinkled white covers of the bed. "I don't really remember what happened," I lie, rubbing the sides of my knuckles against my forehead. "I don't have any recollection of whoever attacked me."
                          
This is the punishment I deserve. I can't do anything about my mistakes in the past but learn and grow from them. That damn nerd has influenced me much more than I'd like to admit. Still, I'm not gonna be a goddamn coward and abscond from the ramifications of my actions. Maybe I'm a condescending ass, but I'm just as human.
                          
"Kacchan?"
                          
These mistakes are mine to fix the faces of and clash with. Loving you was never a mistake and never will be. Even if it hurts like all hell to dissect this—the relationship between the three of us, the truths we've all hid, your descent to villainy, me being the literal validation to you trying to kill yourself and nearly succeeding, and all that shit—I can't allow any of that to usurp me. The murky water my mind's been submerged in is now lucid.