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It wasn't like in the movies.
The body didn't soar through the air and crash to the ground. The world didn't stop. There was no rush of silence or ringing in Hizashi's ears. There were no dramatics, no slow-motion cry in warning. No.
The bullet pierced through Eraserhead's forehead, his head snapped backward, and his body crumpled to the ground on the spot. Like someone had flipped the switch of his consciousness, cut his strings, leaving him in a lifeless heap.
Chaos raged around Hizashi. Sounds of fighting, orders screamed out, cries of pain, crashes of concrete and shattering glass. A car alarm in the distance, a shout for help, the crackle of fire from a nearby collapse. Everything was so loud, moving so fast. All he could do was stand in the middle of it, staring at the crumpled body on the ground. Others ran past like it hadn't just contained a life. Eraserhead was part of the backdrop to the already destroyed scenery. Nothing more than a chunk of debris.
Hizashi hadn't even seen who'd fired the gun. Hadn't seen where it'd been aiming. He'd only heard the crack of its fire and turned in time to see Shouta take the bullet. Hizashi couldn’t cry out in warning, couldn’t move to try and push him out of the way—there hadn't been time, it happened too fast.
Nobody else reacted. There were others injured and on the ground, bodies of civilians under the rubble, hidden in the mayhem. The middle of a fight was no place to mourn, no place to react. That's how they were taught to push forward—block it out and deal with the fallout later. That's what he'd done in the past when faced with the gory reality of a fight, looking away and pretending he hadn't seen. Lock it up in his mind and deal with it later, in the safety of their home, where the memories had nothing to block them from surfacing.
Not this time.
The fight continued around him as he stood in the middle of the demolished street, staring across the distance at Shouta. Shouta's body. As if in a moment, he'd get back up, shake off the hit like a punch. But he didn't.
Hizashi took a step forward, and someone barreling past crashed into his side, shouting, "Watch it!"
Not stopping for a moment, Hizashi only stumbled, eyes glued forward. Something exploded behind him, shaking the earth, making his ears ring. Smoke thickened the air. New screams rang out, the smashing of metal and crumbling of concrete.
Hizashi walked toward Shouta.
Maybe if he checked. Maybe the bullet grazed him, and he'd just been knocked out. He couldn't be... he wasn't... this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It was too fast, it happened too fast. Hizashi didn't even…
"Shouta," His voice came as a hoarse wheeze, barely loud enough to reach his own ears over all the noise. A plea. "Shouta?"
He tripped over rubble and dropped to his knees next to his lover. Shouta was on his side, facing away from Hizashi, body curled into the fetal position. It almost looked like he'd gone down from a hit to the stomach, if it weren't for how his arms were awkwardly bent beneath him. Hizashi’s vision blurred, and he hadn't realized he'd started hyperventilating until his breath caught in his throat. He reached out, hand trembling, and grasped his shoulder.
Rolling Shouta onto his back, Hizashi only glimpsed him for a moment before he was reeling back, throwing himself to the side in time for vomit to fly up his throat and splatter to the pavement. He heaved, coughing and gagging around the vile taste. His whole body shook, vision spinning. No. It couldn't be real; it didn't look real. He had to be seeing things, this was just a sick joke.
The image burned at the front of his mind. After a moment of breathing raggedly, he spat once more, then turned. Blood rushed to his feet, leaving him cold, and his stomach heaved around nothing.
Shouta sprawled on his back.
Shouta, eyes open, blankly directed toward the sky.
Shouta. A gaping, bloody hole punched through the center of his forehead.
Dark clots of blood, flecks of shattered white bone, skin torn to shreds. It wasn't small. The space between his eyebrows, nearly up to his hairline, was decimated. A punched-through crater of a wound that splattered specks of blood across the rest of his face. It didn't even look like a bullet wound; it looked like something much larger had torn through his head.
Hizashi's brain wasn't accepting it. Kept trying to block it out, focusing on the glassy look over Shouta's dark eyes, the slack way his mouth hung open slightly in a mockery of shock. The dark red line of blood slowly trailing its way down his pale cheek. It couldn't be real. This wasn't Shouta, his best friend, his husband, his soulmate—this couldn't be his body, alive just moments ago and now just an empty shell. So sudden and so violent.
He was alive just a second ago.
Hizashi's trembling hand grabbed Shouta's limp one. He was still warm, he still had sweat on his skin. One of his knuckles was split open, oozing blood. As if his heart was still beating it to the wound. In a moment of frantic hope, Hizashi tore off his speaker, letting it crash to the pavement, and leaned down to press his ear over Shouta's heart, holding his breath. Waiting to feel the rise and fall of air in his lungs, the thump of his heart. Maybe it wasn't that bad. It looked worse than it was. Maybe he was still…
Nothing. Of course not. There was a hole in his skull that had blown his life away.
"No," Hizashi shook his head, sitting back on his knees. He clenched his hand around Shouta's lax one. "No, no, no..."
Leaned over him, hand on the broken concrete next to his head. Hizashi's shadow fell over Shouta's face, blocking the bright sun from his unseeing eyes. His dark hair splayed out around him, a mimicry of a halo. The way it did when they lay in bed together. Under his hair, a pool of crimson, growing by the second. His dark eyes, usually so richly brown and complex with emotion—a greyness clouded them, dull, pupils wide and foggy. Empty.
"Mic!"
Someone was screaming his name, someone in the midst of the fighting.
"Present Mic! We need backup!"
Hizashi didn't care. He stared into Shouta's blank eyes. Everything else felt distant.
Dead.
Shouta was dead.
Shouta was dead, and nothing mattered anymore.
Something hollow and jagged tore its way through Hizashi's chest, icy cold and oozing. Not horror. Not grief. Resignation.
Hands grabbed at his shoulders, trying to pull him up and away from the body of his dead lover, and he thrashed, clutching Shouta's hand and the front of his jumpsuit.
"Mic, come on! We need your quirk!" Whoever shouted in his ear. The ground shook with an explosion, loosening their grip under his arms.
"You have to focus, we have people to save!" They were angry, desperate.
"I don't care," Hizashi's voice sounded weird to his own ears. Flat and empty. "Leave me alone."
Hands on his arm again, tugging. They had to shout over the noise of the fighting and destruction. "Pull it together or you'll die here!"
"I'm already dead."
They growled in frustration, letting go of him. He crawled back over Shouta, clutching his hand, looking into his eyes. His face was paler now. A drop of wetness hit Shouta’s cheek, running clear over specks of blood and trailing down to his temple. Hizashi wondered if it was about to rain. That would be appropriate. Shouta loved the rain.
Another drop, landing just below Shouta's eye. Hizashi realized he was crying. There was no rain on such a bright, sunny day. Shouta's wrecked face blurred as the tears distorted Hizashi's vision. He thought the ground was shaking again for a moment, but it was just the tremble wracking through his own body.
"I need someone to come extract Present Mic!" The voice behind him didn't mean anything. "He's compromised."
No, I'm just dead.
"Shouta," he whispered, leaning close in case Shouta whispered back. "Wake up."
He cupped his hand around Shouta's jaw, swiping a thumb under his eye. Blood smeared across pale skin. Shouta didn't move. Because this wasn't Shouta anymore. It was just a body.
"Hey. You gotta—" His breath hitched, sob catching in his chest. "You can't leave me..."
The body didn't move. Didn't change. Stayed limp, and dead, and empty.
Hizashi shook his head, and desperation began to claw at his throat as reality became clear and certain.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this, not on a random Friday during a broad-daylight large-scale villain attack. Not on the sidelines where no one had seen it but Hizashi, where he missed who even fired the gun. He always thought Shouta would either die a hero’s death— saving someone—or be forced to retire, far into the future.
They were supposed to have years and years left together. He thought they'd have more time!
"Mic, let's go," Someone's hands under his arms again, trying to pull him up. Their voice gentle and kind, "You have to get out of here if you can't fight anymore, it's dangerous."
"Stop!" He shouted, shrugging them off, clutching Shouta's shirt. "I can't leave him!"
More hands were on him, tearing his grip from Shouta, someone hauling him back as he fought them. People were leaning over Shouta's body now, another person in front of him, trying to block his view, but he shoved them away. He didn't want anyone to touch Shouta.
"We need a body bag!" One of them called, "Eraserhead was KIA!"
"No!" Hizashi wailed, and the medics flinched at the volume.
The one holding him let go to cover their ears, and Hizashi scrambled toward his lover, shoving the medics away from him. He grasped Shouta's shirt, kneeling above him, and pressed his face against his chest. Sobbing, clutching the fabric tight in his fists, shrugging off the hands that touched him, blocking out the noise of the fighting and the screams, the voices trying to soothe him.
Nothing could make him let go, could make him give up his hold on Shouta's body. He'd lie here with Shouta until his body rots too, until his heart gives out. Take me with you. Come back. I won't leave you. His throat was raw, eyes burning, hot tears streaking his face and falling to Shouta's shirt. It hurt, that rawness, that cold, empty chasm in his chest, swallowing up everything else. What was he supposed to do now? What was the point?
They could leave him here, with his lover, to let the ground open up and claim them together. Let a villain take Hizashi’s life, too. It didn't matter. He didn't care. He couldn't be left here, incomplete.
A hand on his head, fingers threading into his hair. He tried to shake them off, just let me mourn. The fingers stayed steady, moving to cup the back of his neck.
"Hizashi."
Hizashi cried harder, wanting to hide in Shouta's shirt, climb into his chest.
Movement, the body below him, no! They were taking Shouta away, they were going to stuff him in a body bag like garbage, and freeze him as if he hadn't just been a person moments ago. Hizashi clutched at his lover—still warm—wrapping arms around his torso, holding him, keeping him.
"Hizashi, lift your head."
He couldn't. Two hands now, on his shoulders, trying to push him up.
"Please, don't cry, it's okay. Everything's okay."
More movement, shifting, the persistent hands pressing against him. Hizashi was shaking and too numb to push back as he was guided off Shouta's chest and sat on the concrete.
Through blurry, tear-filled eyes, he saw Shouta's face, brow drawn in concern, eyes dancing over him, lips in a frown. Sitting up in front of him. Shouta's hands moved to Hizashi's biceps, squeezing.
"What?" Hizashi gasped through his tears. He roughly wiped at his face, clearing his vision. Shouta's pale face was free of blood, his eyes alive and expressive.
"I'm okay," Shouta said, "Look at me."
"What?" He repeated.
Hizashi reached up, brushing Shouta's bangs back—no blood, no bullet hole—ran his fingers through the dark hair, held Shouta's head between his hands. Tears still burned down his face, his brain fogged with confusion and fear. Did he die too? Was this how they got to be together? Hizashi rubbed his thumb over Shouta's forehead, feeling the smooth, intact skin.
His eyes wouldn't connect to his brain, uncomprehending of what he was seeing. The image of Shouta's limp and bloody body burned into his mind, not linking up with the one sitting in front of him.
Hizashi's hands fluttered from Shouta's face to his shoulders, squeezing hard, feeling how solid he was—not a hallucination, not a ghost. "I don't—"
"Hizashi." Shouta shook him lightly. "Look at me. I'm not dead. It was a quirk, it made it look like I… But I’m okay. Breathe with me."
Shouta moved to hold Hizashi's face, swiping under his wide eyes to brush away the tears that wouldn't stop. Hizashi's breath felt lodged in his throat. Another rumble of the pavement as something crashed nearby. Shouta broke eye contact, looking toward the noise.
"We have to move out of the street, it's not safe, come on."
Shouta started to pull Hizashi up by the arms, shifting his legs under him, but Hizashi couldn't move. Staring at Shouta, alive, standing up, and trying to tug Hizashi with him. He glanced down at the pavement, where the puddle of blood had been leaking from the back of Shouta's head. There was no blood. Just broken pavement.
Shouta hauled him out of the street, away from the chaos and mess of the fight, ducking into an alcove in front of a closed shop with broken windows. Shouta's hands gripped Hizashi's biceps tightly, almost enough to hurt. He was still looking toward the fight, brow furrowed and eyes flicking through the mess. Alive, warm dark eyes full of thought and intelligence, not glassed over and foggy. His lips in a tense line, not slacked and open with his last gasp of breath.
Hizashi grabbed Shouta's chin and turned his face, tearing those dark eyes away from everything but himself. Pale skin, peppered with dirt but clean of blood. Rough stubble under Hizashi's fingertips where he squeezed and held Shouta's jaw, chin cradled in his palm. He let go and pulled Shouta's hands away from his biceps, clutching calloused fingers in his trembling hands. Dirty and scarred, his split knuckle still sluggishly bleeding.
"I don't—I don't understand..."
Shouta adjusted their hands so he was holding Hizashi's between his.
"I don't know what you saw, but I promise it wasn't real," Shouta said. "I was paralyzed, and there was some kind of illusion over me. I'm not dead. I know you thought I was, but I'm okay."
"H-how do I know you're real now?"
"Feel my heart," Shouta took Hizashi's hand and guided his palm to press over his heart, holding it there. "Feel it? This is real. I’m sorry I scared you."
The rapid thud of Shouta's heart against Hizashi's palm sent a wave of warmth through him, relief. Reality was reorienting itself. His scattered and desperate thoughts came back together in clarity, finally feeling like he could actually think again.
Just a quirk. An illusion. A hallucination.
Whatever it was, Shouta wasn't dead.
"Oh gods," Hizashi choked out, tears welling up in his eyes again. He felt weak with the relief. Pulling his hands from Shouta's and cupping his face, threading fingers into the dark hair. "Oh gods, Shouta, I thought—I saw you get shot. In the head. You were—your face, it was—" He choked on his tears. "It looked awful."
Shouta surged forward, wrapping strong arms around his middle, hiding his face against Hizashi's bare neck. His speaker was still abandoned in the street. Shouta's breath was hot against his skin, and Hizashi held him tight, shutting his eyes and letting out a breath that felt like a prayer. Alive.
"I can't lose you like that," His voice pained. The fear felt brittle in his chest, raw from being carved open. "I was ready to lie right there and die with you."
Shouta's arms tightened. He mumbled against Hizashi's neck, "We're okay. I promise, we’re both okay."
Hizashi pressed his lips to Shouta's temple and nodded in agreement. "We're okay."