Here we go! I promised angst and I shall deliver! Don't know how much I'll get through today, but it's a start!

In The Wake of You - KiriBaku Breakup Thread

"Do you have everything, Kats?"

Eijiro stands in the middle of the apartment, eyes sweeping every inch of visible

space for anything that belongs to the blond.

Katsuki shakes his head, gaze never leaving the redhead's face even as the other can't meet his eyes.

"It's all in the car. Just this," he says, nudging the suitcase at his feet.

It was filled with clothes, some books, and a slew of personal bedroom items Eijiro would rather not think about. They had done the room last just in case they changed their minds.

They didn't.

"Did you get everything set up with Izuku?"

"Yeah. Him and Round Face cleared the spare room for me."

Eijiro nods, trying to keep the emotions brewing a storm in his stomach off his face. Katsuki looks as collected as he always does, and he doesn't want to shatter either of their resolves by crying.

Even if all he wants to do is curl up on the couch and cry.

"Ei." Katsuki's eyebrows are pinched when he finally manages to look at his face, and his mouth is sagged in a frown. "Are you sure you wanna do this?"

He wants to shout 'no', that this is the last thing he wants. What he wants is for the blond to open his suitcase and dump it on the floor. He wants to be crushed in a hug and peppered with kisses. He wants his boyfriend.

You can't always have what you want,

and Eijiro can't have him.

So he forces himself to nod, even though the motion brings tears to his eyes. He doesn't miss the look of apprehension that falls over Katsuki's face before he puts a hand on Eijiro's cheek.

"I won't be far," he says, wiping at his stray tears.

'In case you change your mind' is the silent end to the sentence.

"Not until you change yours," is all Eijiro says, placing a soft kiss on Katsuki's palm before gingerly pulling it off his cheek.

They stand there for a moment, hands laced tightly together

as they look on at the biggest decision they've ever made. It wasn't an easy one, and it had taken weeks of discussion. Weeks to wrap their heads around what they both wanted, what they both expected, and in the end they just didn't... add up.

Eijiro doesn't see Katsuki out to his car. He doesn't watch him walk down the stairs, doesn't see him drive away. All he sees is his best friend's back as he disappears behind the door.

When the door shuts, and the sound of the car starting fills the distant silence,

Eijiro cracks. He lets the tears cloud his eyes and rain down his cheeks. The sobs feel like thunder, and the trembling of his shoulders feels like lightening dancing across his skin.

In the wake of the loss of the greatest storm he's ever faced, Eijiro falls apart.

(TBC - Gotta take a break)

It takes a few hours for Eijiro to peel himself off the couch. By the time he does, he's covered in tears and snot and sweat, and if he doesn't shower now he'll never get around to it.

He moves like a ghost through his own apartment.

He decides to pull clothes out of the dryer because he can't stand to go into his half empty bedroom yet. He pulls a towel out of the hall closet, staring a moment too long at the Ground Zero themed beach towel sitting in the back before swapping for that one.

He's allowed to miss him. He's allowed to miss /them/. What they had. What they were. He could give himself that.

It's when he's turning the water on, setting it to the wrong temperature- to the own used when they showered together- that he notices a bottle beside the tub.

It was a stupid expensive bottle of body wash. He remembered laughing at Katsuki for buying it, not thinking he'd care about stuff like that. Apparently because of all the special sweat, his skin needs more care than the average person.

He hadn't actually mentioned it to Katsuki, he'd been meaning to just never got around to it, but he always really liked the way it made him smell.

It kind if reminded him of s'mores. Burnt s'mores, but still s'mores. Which was fine, because that was how Katsuki ate them.

Now standing in their bathroom alone- his bathroom alone- his head swims with all the little things he never said. Would they have made a difference? Would they have changed how Katsuki feels about him?

Maybe. Maybe not.

He could tell him now. Could pull out his phone and text every thought he'd ever held back from saying. If he changed his mind, great, if he didn't... Well he was already gone. It couldn't hurt anymore than it already did.

But he wouldn't do that to Katsuki. He wouldn't cause his best friend any more pain than he'd already caused. He wasn't the only one hurting, and he had to remind himself of that.

So he pushed that thought, along with all of the others, to the back of his mind.

Eijiro sleeps on the couch that night. He'd hoped that after drowning his thoughts in the shower he'd be more clear headed. But when he stalked back to the living room and his stomach reminded him he was hungry, it hit him all over again.

Katsuki wouldn't be cooking dinner.

In the fridge, filling several tupperware containers, was a few days worth of meals for the redhead. Each with a note as sassy as the blond himself.

'dont forget to eat dumbass' as if he knew Eijiro would be too heartbroken to put any effort into cooking.

It was almost too much for him to bother with heating it up, but if he couldn't go through one lousy meal, how was he gonna make it the rest of his life?

As he waited on the microwave to beep, it swirled in his head.

'The rest of his life' wasn't supposed to mean alone.

It was supposed to be followed by 'with Katsuki'.

But his boyfriend- ex-boyfriend- didn't see him as forever. He saw him as 'as long as we can', and that didn't sit well in Eijiro's stomach.

// 'I don't want 'forever', Ei. I just want right now." //

// "I can't promise to be here in ten months, let alone ten years." //

// "Why can't you just be happy with what we have now? Why does it need to be different?" //

He falls asleep that night with the Ground Zero towel draped over him like a blanket and a messily scrawled sticky note in his hands.

One night turns into one week. One week turns into one month. It doesn't get any easier waking up alone. His neck and back are starting to ache from the couch cushions, but Eijiro can't convince himself see the bedroom half empty.

He already felt the weight of half his heart vacating his chest when his boyfriend walked out the door. The half that had weighed heavy for months as he tried to wrap his head around what Katsuki wanted from them.

Part of him wanted to take it back, to beg Katsuki to come home, that he'd take whatever the other had to offer. He was being selfish, he knew that.

He wanted the blond to believe him when he said he was his endgame. That his mind wasn't going to change.

Katsuki was convinced he'd eventually run Eijiro off, or that he didn't trust himself to keep feeling what he feels for the redhead.

He never said anything he didn't mean; Katsuki made sure to remind himself of that. So he couldn't promise Eijiro that he'd never leave,

that he'd never make the other want to leave. He hadn't even said 'i love you' in that many words. Eijiro knew he did, knew by the looks, by the way his arms closed around him when he was fighting back his weekly panic attacks.

Bakugo Katsuki loved Kirishima Eijiro. And vice versa. That wasn't enough for either of them, no matter how long they pretended it was.

He got simi-regular updates from Midoriya. Katsuki was normal, grumpy, did his work and sat around bickering with his childhood friend.

They never said anything about him being happy, but Eijiro wondered if they even knew what happy looked like for Katsuki.

Did they know it was the way he held back his smile? The way he sighed like the world was lifted from his shoulders?

He didn't want to admit it made him feel a little better, at least knowing that he wasn't the only one feeling down about the split.

Especially since he kept finding Katsuki's things scattered about the place. They were stupid, small things.

A shirt left crumpled in the dryer. His toothbrush (it was time for a new one anyway). A container of recipes for dishes he'd wanted to make Eijiro that they'd only put a dent in.

It was like there were pieces of him strewn all across the apartment.

Pieces that gave the illusion that he wasn't alone even though he'd never felt more lonely.

He'd never felt more like a failure.