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writing-wyvern · 1 year

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Hard to Explain, Hard to Understand

ShigaDestro Whump Oneshot

Ao3 link below.

So, I wanted to write some drama, and decided I was gonna write whump to do it. I love winter based whump, so when I found a whump Bingo that featured the prompt “Falling Through the Ice”, I decided to shoot my shot. I thought this was going to end up being a lot shorter than it turned out, but what can you do? I mean, the set-up section of the story is around 3000 words by itself, so sorry in advance.

I want to give thanks to the lovely FungusFangs on Twitter for introducing me to ShigaDestro! I love this pairing so much, and if you’re also interested in DabiSkeptic (like I am), I’d highly suggest you check out her art! I’d like to give you all some discretion though: the focus of her art is emeto and stuffing kink, so please be aware of that going in.

This will be cross-posted on my Ao3 (writing_wyvern) but not on my Twitter (@writing_wyvern), due to this being a full-length story. If you liked the fic here, I would highly suggest you go over to my other social media pages and give those some attention there, too! There will occasionally be content exclusive to my other pages, especially my Twitter, due to the way Twitter is formatted in comparison to Tumblr and Ao3.

I would like to give trigger warnings (TWs) for mentions of needles/IVs, mentions of death and death by drowning, hypothermia, couple arguing, mentions of transphobia and explicitly written transphobic words, implications of child abuse, mentions of suicide, depictions of a suicide attempt, and running away. If any of these topics bother you, please leave instead of leaving a hate comment or something. Hate comments are not productive, and no one’s happy either leaving them or reading them. They’ll just get deleted anyway, so don’t even bother.

With all of that said, on with the show!

It was the middle of the night when he realized Shigaraki wasn’t there.

Normally, he wouldn’t have thought anything of it; occasionally, Shigaraki would disappear in the middle of the night, maybe to grab a drink and a snack or maybe to go to the main room in order to play one of his video games so he wouldn’t wake up from the sound of the television playing loud 8-bit music or action sound effects. But on this particular night, Yotsubashi decided to surprise Shigaraki by getting up and coming to see him instead of sleeping away like he normally did. So with that, he got up, put on his fuzzy slippers, and made his way out of their bedroom.

On his way to the kitchen was the main room, and when he passed through it, there was no sign of Shigaraki. The lights and the television were both off, the controllers were still neatly put away in the cabinet of the entertainment center, and the couch didn’t even have any sort of indentation in it from where Shigaraki would have been sitting. His only conclusion to draw was that Shigaraki was in the kitchen, getting a drink and making himself a snack. (He couldn’t have been in there for long, then; usually, he fixed himself quick snacks or even just grabbed pre-made ones like chips or cup ramen.)

However, when he arrived, he found that the room seemingly hadn’t been touched since dinner was cooked last night—the pans were still hanging clean, the dishwasher was showing a display light indicating that it had finished its washing cycle and had never been opened, and lights had never been turned on to begin with. This may have been mundane to anyone outside looking in, but to Yotsubashi, it only meant one thing: Tomura Shigaraki was no longer inside the villa. And adding that to the fact that it was just two hours past midnight, still completely dark outside, and the temperature was several degrees below zero with snow and ice everywhere, he immediately became worried.

From there, it wasn’t long until everyone in the villa was awake. Everyone took a floor and began to look through every single room, whether it was occupied or not. Shigaraki was not in the kitchen, his bedroom, the main room, the assembly hall, the conference room, any of the unoccupied rooms in the villa, or even in the courtyard outside. And that was where another problem arose. As far as anyone in the Paranormal Liberation Front knew, Shigaraki did not have the ability to drive. Everywhere he went, he was escorted by someone else, whether it be another member of the Front who was able to do so or a hired chauffeur. Thankfully, none of the escort vehicles were missing from the villa’s parking lot… but that meant Shigaraki was probably walking outside in snow that was a third of a meter deep (with more incoming), and Yotsubashi doubted he had a jacket on at all. Shigaraki nearly always wore long sleeved clothing, and would always, without fail, tell Yotsubashi that his thin long sleeved shirt was enough to keep him safe from temperatures far below zero degrees.

(It was sometimes funny, sometimes not. Sometimes, he would actually beg for Yotsubashi’s jacket, and he would begrudgingly hand it over for the walk to the car, and then let Shigaraki sit in the seat directly in front of the heater to help him warm up for the drive back to the villa. Those were the rather funny occasions. And then, in the less amusing times, he would internally bring himself to tears—but never actually let them spill over onto his cheeks—as he silently glared at Yotsubashi, because Shigaraki never wanted to admit when the older man was right. And then they would get outside to their escort vehicle, and Shigaraki would either continue to sit in silence or blow up at Yotsubashi. Either way, it would certainly end with them going to their shared bedroom when they got back to the villa, and Yotsubashi would wrap Shigaraki in blankets and put on a movie for him to watch as they warmed up. It was much more tender than amusing, but Yotsubashi couldn’t help himself from smiling every time it happened.)

Now, Yotsubashi was on a mission. He and Hanabata both put on their coats and scarves, rushing out to an escort vehicle. Hanabata climbed into the driver’s seat and began to circle around the villa and go down nearby streets, all while Yotsubashi stuck his head out the window and called for the Grand Commander by name. He started out by screaming “Shigaraki”, but as time went on, and finding him seemed to become more and more difficult, Yotsubashi became desperate, and switched over to his given name, screaming “Tomura” up and down the streets. At this point, time was of the essence—if they didn’t find Shigaraki soon, there was a very good possibly he was going to be freezing to death out in the snow. And after a while, Hanabata parked, much to Yotsubashi’s- well, dismay was not a strong enough word to describe it. In layman’s terms, Yotsubashi was rather pissed off, and the moment he felt the car shakes slightly from being shifted into park, he turned his head to glare at Hanabata, who was still staring straight ahead and looking through the windshield.

“What are you doing?! We have to look for him!” Yotsubashi shouted, balling his hands into fists at his sides. He really didn’t want to get rid of Hanabata… but this was Shigaraki’s life possible being on the line here, and Yotsubashi didn’t want to risk him. In this moment (and generally, in most moments), Shigaraki’s life was more important to Yotsubashi than Hanabata’s.

Hanabata finally turned his head, now switching his gaze to Yotsubashi. there was a slight glare against his glasses from a nearby streetlight shining through the car windows, but he was still able to see Hanabata’s expression—he was being completely serious. There was no friendliness in his eyes, and there was no smile across his face. Apparently, this was important to Hanabata, too… although probably not to the same degree. Without a single word coming out of Hanabata’s mouth, he turned his head to face the other direction, opened up the car door, and stepped out into the cold open, walking around to the other side of the car and walking across the street to the other sidewalk. He then stood there, staring across at the car and hoping Yotsubashi understood what he wanted to happen.

And he did.

Yotsubashi also stepped out of the car, closing the door behind him and rushing across the street to meet Hanabata on the other side. Once they met up on the other side of the road, Hanabata began to stroll down without any words ever slipping out from between his lips, guiding Yotsubashi down the sidewalk and past a tall black metal fence that was to their right. Eventually, Yotsubashi was able to follow Hanabata around a corner, and was brought to the entrance of the park that was behind the fence, which had tall hedges grown around the inside of the park to block it from view from the outside. (The structure confused Yotsubashi, but he couldn’t really do anything about it—he didn’t own the park, after all.) During wintertime, like it was at this moment, the pond in the middle of the park was usually frozen over due to the weather, and many would use it to ice skate. However, the absolutely shocking sight that greeted both Yotsubashi and Hanabata when they approached the entrance to the park was a large hole in the middle of the pond.

“I saw this on about our fourth circling around the block,” Hanabata explained, gesturing to the broken ice over the pond water. “I got worried, and I figured it was best to check it out.”

Without even so much as a second thought, Yotsubashi ran into the park, throwing his coat and scarf off behind him, taking off his pajama top so as not to get it wet (as neither he nor Hanabata had opted to change into proper clothes before going to look for Shigaraki—after all, time was of the essence), and shoved his hand into the gaping hole in the ice. Thankfully, the pond was rather shallow, and within mere seconds, his hand was able to grasp onto… cloth. Not a stray jacket or scarf that had possibly been thrown into the lake for whatever reason, because Yotsubashi could tell there was pressure underneath the cloth he had grabbed onto. There was someone attached to the cloth he had just grabbed. And hopefully (or maybe… dishearteningly), the person wearing the clothes he was grabbing onto was Shigaraki.

He began to panic, desperately trying to save the person beneath. Well- trying to save Shigaraki. There was no one else it could be. He never saw a report about someone drowning at the bottom of this pond, his phone never rang with a J-Alert telling him about a missing person or child in the area, and he hadn’t even seen signs nearby that were warning park attendees about the ice in the pond being broken. This ice had been broken overnight. Shigaraki was the only person missing from their area. Shigaraki was most definitely the person at the bottom of the pond, and Shigaraki had to be saved. Yotsubashi was going to save him.

He shoved his other arm in there, gripping onto the cloth with both hands and pulling up with all his might. Normally, he would have been able to lift Shigaraki (he did it all the time, after all), but he was under the water, and was most likely unconscious. He was going to be hard to lift, and somehow, even Yotsubashi was struggling to pull Shigaraki up to the surface. He really didn’t want to strip himself down to absolutely nothing in the freezing cold and dive into the even colder water to save him. Call him selfish, but at the same time, Yotsubashi couldn’t risk also bringing himself into paralyzing temperatures and causing himself to struggle in the effort of saving Shigaraki.

Suddenly, as he was pulling, he felt Hanabata rub up against him, also shirtless and shoving his arms down into the rather large opening of the pond that Shigaraki had seemingly broken when he fell in. Together, they gripped onto Shigaraki’s clothes and pulled up, somehow managing to pul him up through the water enough to move their hands from just gripping onto his clothes to be gripping onto his actual limbs. He was turned over onto his back now, and Hanabata was able to shift himself to be on the opposite side of the pond without ever letting go of Shigaraki’s sweater. eventually, Yotsubashi was gripping around Shigaraki’s ankle, and Hanabata was gripping onto Shigaraki’s forearm. And eventually, after what was probably, realistically five minutes—but felt like a lifetime to Yotsubashi, they were able to bring him out of the water and up onto the surface, laying Shigaraki’s practically lifeless body into the snow.

There was no blood. Thank god, there was no blood.

Yotsubashi was just sitting there in shock, staring down at Shigaraki. Before he knew it, however, he had sprung back to life, with Hanabata having sprung into action while Yotsubashi stupidly sat there and did absolutely nothing. Hanabata was doing chest compressions on Shigaraki, desperately trying to keep his heart from going out. Yotsubashi panicked and rushed over to Shigaraki, deciding to use his own hands to press on Shigaraki’s stomach in an attempt to get water out of his lungs. Thankfully, he could hear Hanabata let out a sound of surprise as a result of water shooting out of Shigaraki’s mouth and nose, indicating that whatever Yotsubashi was doing, it was working.

After a moment, Hanabata finally spoke, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “We need to undress him to keep him from going into shock, then bring him back to the car and warm him up on our way back to the villa. Then we’re going to bring him inside and try to warm him up further while we wait for a medic to come by and make sure he’s not going to be seriously hurt from this. Hopefully, we can find out how he ended up out here when he comes to…”

Yotsubashi didn’t need to hear another word. He grabbed onto Shigaraki’s sweater, pulling it up over the younger man’s head and tearing it off of his body. As he placed a hand on Shigaraki’s chest in order to find a heartbeat, Yotsubashi only found himself frowning more and more—his skin was ice cold from being submerged in frozen-over water, and he found himself somehow needing to help Shigaraki even more than he had been trying to before. He tore off the boy’s shoes, socks, and pants, leaving the poor boy laying in the snow in nothing but a chest binder and boxers. Oh, he really hated to do this, but Yotsubashi took Shigaraki’s chest binder off of him, immediately throwing his own jacket overtop of Shigaraki’s body so Hanabata didn’t see the younger boy’s now exposed breasts.

“Hanabata, don’t look over this way until I tell you that you can look,” Yotsubashi commanded, and Hanabata obliged. Yotsubashi put his jacket on Shigaraki properly, pulling it over the boy’s arms and zipping it up in the front. His clothes were always big on Shigaraki’s thin and tiny body, and this jacket (that was normally a little baggy on Yotsubashi as it was) was no exception. Crisis averted. After Yotsubashi gave Hanabata the okay to look, they worked together to lift Shigaraki and lug him into the backseat of the car.

Yotsubashi sat in the backseat with him while Hanabata climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the heat onto the maximum settings. Shigaraki wasn’t even buckled in—Yotsubashi was holding the younger boy in his lap and keeping him close, hoping his body warmth would do something, anything to help warm him. He kept the boy’s head against his own chest, having one arm wrapped around him diagonally, wedged under Shigaraki’s right arm with his hand resting on Shigaraki’s left shoulder. Yotsubashi’s other arm was slung over his younger companion’s left side, his hand rubbing Shigaraki’s back in between the shoulder blades. He was praying that at some point during the car ride, Shigaraki would wake up… but he never did.

That wasn’t to say that he died in the lake, or even that he died on his way to the villa. No, Shigaraki never died at all, but had put himself into a coma of sorts as a result of plunging himself into the bottom of the pond. He warmed up somewhat just on the car ride to the villa, and warmed up fully after being placed inside his warm bedroom for a short while. He was left nude (aside from his boxers) in the bed, both a regular throw blanket and a heavy comforter on top of his thin body, and a space heater going in the room in addition to the central heating that went through the entire building.

It was only a little over an hour until a medic arrived from the nearest hospital, given that the nearest hospital in question was nearly 115 kilometers away from the villa. Even after that amount of time being spent out of the freezing cold water and in a warm environment, Shigaraki was still unresponsive, although he was clearly breathing and had an audible heartbeat. The medic was able to easily diagnose Shigaraki with moderate to severe hypothermia as a result of submersion in the cold pond, and decided to additionally treat him by hooking him up to an IV and sending warm fluids through his body. The medic left after giving Yotsubashi, Hanabata, and Chikazoku directions: change out Shigaraki’s fluid bag whenever it ran dry, and make sure he stayed as warm as possible. They were also left with the instructions to only let Shigaraki wake up on his own without any external intervention, and to call for an ambulance if he did not wake up after three days.

Shigaraki spent a decent amount of time in a comatose state as he recovered, and through it all, Yotsubashi made a promise that he would never leave his side. Hanabata would have to bring Yotsubashi his meals every morning, afternoon, and night, and would always grab his dirty dishes and take them to the kitchen, swapping the empty and dirty dishes with new plates that contained food. Of course, Yotsubashi was never happy to eat. He ate it all because he knew he needed to eat and that if Shigaraki were awake, he would get mad if Yotsubashi didn’t eat. But at the end of it all, he was sad. Sad that he couldn’t share his mealtimes with Shigaraki, sad that Shigaraki wouldn’t wake up, and sad that Shigaraki became sick in the first place all because he wasn’t awake to stop him from leaving the villa.

~***~

Chikazoku sighed, standing outside of Shigaraki’s room. He and Hanabata had cracked the door, and they were both peering into the room through the small opening. Of course, the sight that greeted them—and the only one that had done so over the few times they’d checked on those in the room over the past 12 hours—was Yotsubashi sitting to the right of Shigaraki’s bed in an uncomfortable looking wooden chair, holding onto the younger boy’s gloved hand. Yotsubashi honestly looked terribly depressed, and neither Chikazoku nor Hanabata doubted that he was blaming himself for the situation that Shigaraki had been found in. (Although it was rather unclear as to if he had a reason to be blaming himself, the point was that he very much was.)

Chikazoku turned to face Hanabata, turning the doorknob, pulling he door to, and letting go. He didn’t want to make too much noise and alert Yotsubashi to the fact that they were there. “So. What do you think? Will we have to call an ambulance?”

Hanabata cupped his fingers around his chin, looking up to the ceiling slightly in thought. Once he finally came up with his answer, he looked back down to be at eye level with Chikazoku, but decided not to move his hand away from his chin. “That’s a bit of a toss-up, you see. We don’t know how long he was gone from the villa in total. We don’t know how long he had been at the bottom of that pond we found him in. All we know is that he’s alive and currently comatose. So, simply… I’m not sure. He could wake up, or we could have to call for an ambulance to take him to the hospital for treatment.”

Chikazoku sighed and crossed him arms over his chest. “That’s true. Hopefully, he wakes up before the three day mark. If he were to be sent to the hospital, especially by ambulance, Yotsubashi’s mental health would definitely go into further decline. He seems to already be rather upset as it is. I haven’t seen him all day because he’s refused to come out of the pig sty that is Shigaraki’s bedroom.”

“Well, of course he’s upset,” Hanabata huffed out, moving his hands into the front pockets of his jacket. “Think about the circumstances that he’s in. He woke up, and within an hour, found out that if he had just gone back to bed, his lover would be dead at the bottom of a pond in a public park at this very moment. And we both know that, without any doubt in our minds, he blames himself for everything that has happened. So ask me this, Tomoyasu… why shouldn’t Yotsubashi be upset?”

Chikazoku tilted his head up and shifted his gaze down in order for Hanabata to be able to see him glaring slightly. “I’ll tell you why he shouldn’t be upset.” He lowered his head and faced his back to Hanabata, saying just a single sentence before walking down the hall and out of sight. “Because he had nothing to do with why Shigaraki ended up at the bottom of that pond. Shigaraki had a reason… but Yotsubashi was not that reason.”

And with that, he was gone, leaving Hanabata stunned in front of the door.

~***~

Thankfully, Shigaraki did manage to wake up. It took a whole day passing by, and he didn’t wake up until late in the second day (when Yotsubashi was starting to get really worried), but he did wake up. And of course, Yotsubashi was right there at his side.

“…where am I?” Shigaraki croaked out, looking around and eventually over at Yotsubashi.

Yotsubashi was already aware that Shigaraki had woken up beforehand—the boy had a tendency to do a lot of stretching as he was waking up, and this occasion was no exception to that. “Ah- you’re in your room. How are you feeling?”

“…” Shigaraki paused a moment, seemingly trying to figure out exactly how he was feeling. “I feel like there’s a big needle in my arm, and I don’t want it there.”

Yotsubashi laughed softly. At least the boy’s punk-like attitude didn’t disappear when he got sick. “Well, I’m sorry to report that that needle will be staying in there for a little while. The fluids in the bags are supposed to help you keep warm while you recover.”

“Recover? What the hell happened?” He actually seemed rather pissed off… that wasn’t good.

“I’m not quite sure,” Yotsubashi admitted, crossing his right leg over his left at the knee. “All I know is that I woke up and you were nowhere to be found. Then when Hanabata went outside to look for you… we eventually found you at the bottom of a pond.”

“…bottom of a pond?” Shigaraki tried to lift himself up in order to further speak to Yotsubashi, but found his arms too weak to support his body weight even for that short while. He gave up after a moment of trying and just hurting himself, and remained laying down, flat on his back and flat on the bed. He didn’t even bother to turn onto his side (as facing Yotsubashi would result in Shigaraki laying on the arm that the IV was in), simply turning his head to look at the businessman sitting at his bedside.

“Yes,” Yotsubashi confirmed, never having let go of Shigaraki’s hand through it all. “You were at the bottom of the pond that was in the public park not too far from here. It looked like the ice had broken while you were walking over it and you fell in. Now, what in God’s name were you doing out there? It was the middle of the night, actively snowing, colder than the average temperature of a home freezer, and you were out there without a jacket or even anyone to accompany you.” He didn’t sound angry, and he didn’t even sound like he was worried (although his expression gave away that he very much was). He just looked… disappointed in Shigaraki.

Shigaraki huffed and turned his head to look towards the window on the exact opposite side of the room. He hated disappointing others for several reasons (the main reason being that disappointing his father as a child meant screaming and yelling, and occasionally a beating), and he especially didn’t like upsetting Yotsubashi. Technically speaking, he had power over Yotsubashi, and had no reason to be scared of disappointing him… but at the same time, he didn’t want to disappoint the person that he had mentally been planning to spend the rest of his days alongside.

(Of course, Yotsubashi could never, ever know that Shigaraki was planning to settle down with him in the back of his mind. Not only would that be highly unprofessional of the both of them, but their relationship was strictly “friends with benefits” right now, as far as Shigaraki figured that Yotsubashi knew. As far as Shigaraki knew, however, they were on their way to be married as soon as the younger boy was able to work up the courage to buy a ring and propose to his older subordinate.)

After a few moments of grating silence, Yotsubashi finally spoke up again. “Well? Why would you risk your life like that? I know you may not always be responsible on the battlefield, and I know you don’t like wearing jackets or coats very much. But I know that you wouldn’t normally just run out into life-threatening conditions without so much as a precaution or a word to anyone. Now please tell me… why did you go out there like that, and why did you go out there like that alone?”

Shigaraki still refused to respond, leaving the room in a stunning and near eerie silence. He obviously had an answer—he was clearly the only reason that he had even left that room in the first place, and no one else knew why he had left but him. No one was going to get an answer to this question unless Shigaraki spoke up, and whatever the answer was, it was definitely something that either Shigaraki was embarrassed by or that no one else should ever really have to know. But at the same time, everyone did have to know, or else this issue could never be truly resolved, and it might possibly be impossible to prevent it from happening again.

“…” Yotsubashi didn’t speak for a moment, either. It was a mix between him not knowing what to say and him not being sure if he should say anything at all. He was worried that he might say something that would make Shigaraki want to remain quiet for longer, but he really needed to press the answer out of him, someway, somehow. “…Tomura.”

And Shigaraki raised his head, finally looking back over at Yotsubashi. “You said my name.”

Yotsubashi never called Shigaraki by his given name. Not when they were holding one another in their arms, not in between peppered kisses, and not even during their closest and most intimate moments. He had only purposely called him by first name on formal occasions, such as introducing him to others. The boy other time he had properly said Shigaraki’s given name was during their very first date, and even then, that was just when they went on an actual (and their only) proper date. They both remembered what he had said that night—the night they had both gone out to a nice restaurant together and had a good meal before coming home and joining each other in bed.

”Tomura, I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you.”

(All the time, Shigaraki desperately wondered if he truly meant it. Nearly every day, it ran through his mind—did Yotsubashi truly mean that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with him, or were those just words he said that actually meant nothing, and were only meant to drag Shigaraki into the sheets? After all, he could tell the the older man had trained himself to a point in the art of seduction—he didn’t know everything, sure, but he probably knew enough, and if that much was all that was needed to get Shigaraki to have sex with him, why teach himself any more than he had already learned?)

“Yes,” Yotsubashi said after a few seconds of thinking. “I did say your name. Because I love you. And I want to know what’s wrong. If I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t help you.”

Shigaraki had to take a moment to think, himself. Not only had Yotsubashi just given him a brief love confession… but he still had to think about if he was going to tell Yotsubashi the truth or not. He still had to think about whether he was actually going to give him an answer or not. He didn’t want to break their trust by lying to him, and he didn’t want to completely damage heir entire relationship by refusing to give him any kind of answer, but at the same time, this matter was rather personal to him, and he didn’t want to just go out giving the answer to everyone he knew, who so happened to talk with people that Shigaraki didn’t know, and might let his secrets slip.

But Shigaraki trusted Yotsubashi. And he felt that if he just asked Yotsubashi not to say anything to anyone else, then nothing would ever leave the room they both sat in at that very moment.

“Fine,” he replied, his voice quiet and his single word coming out sounding like a forced grunt. He was still pissed off, and even if he didn’t want to show it, it was clear as day through his furrowed brows and gruff tone. “I’ll tell you. As long as you promise not to tell anyone else. And if you do tell anyone else, I’ll decay you.” He held up his hand (his left hand, attached to the arm that did not have a giant needle stuck in it) to demonstrate, although it fell somewhat flat due to his hand being gloved.

“I won’t say a word to anyone, dear.” Yotsubashi wasn’t normally one for pet names, but now seemed like a suitable time to use one to get his point across. “Whatever it is, I promise it’ll just be between us. No one but myself will ever hear a word about it.”

Shigaraki sighed, finally managing to pull himself up with his left hand. He shakily pressed it against the mattress and pulled his body up with that support, and his entire upper body shook as he raised his head, neck, and eventually his entire upper half to be sitting up. Once he had pulled himself into a sitting position, Shigaraki scooted himself backward and leaned against the headboard. Then he was in the position he wanted to be in, sitting up, his head turned so he could look at Yotsubashi, and his right hand grasped between both of Yotsubashi’s palms. He never objected to having his hand held; it gave him a sense of security and made him feel like he was being loved in this moment.

Shigaraki waited a brief moment before speaking up again. “The reason I left the villa… was because I wanted to leave the villa. I wanted to be outside in the freezing cold. And more than anything… I wanted to drown at the bottom of that frozen pond.”

It was a lot to take in. Yotsubashi had been preparing himself to hear nearly any reason—maybe someone had taken him out and come back, maybe he had left to pick up something and got distracted, or maybe he had even gone out on a very ill-advised walk and accidentally ended up at the bottom of the pond when he slipped on ice beneath the snow and crashed through the ice on the surface of the water. But the terrifying thought of Shigaraki going out there on purpose in the attempt to commit suicide by drowning had never crossed his mind.

“…Tomura…” Yotsubashi didn’t know what to say. He was in complete and total shock. The only other word he could get out was said in a very confused and disappointed tone. “Why?”

Tomura averted his gaze yet again. “No. I told you why I left the villa in the first place because that’s what you wanted to have the answer to. No more questions, because I don’t want to give any more answers.” He scooted himself forward and laid his head back down on the pillow, whimpering softly as the area just below the crown of his head made impact against the pillow. “Now, I would like for you to either shut your mouth and let me get a little more sleep or leave entirely. Your choice.”

Yotsubashi didn’t say another word, instead opting to merely keep a gentle grasp on Shigaraki’s right hand, cupping one half in each of his palms. He didn’t say an “I love you”. He didn’t say Shigaraki’s given name. He just sat there in the chair at Shigaraki’s bedside, keeping his lips sealed as he ran him thumb across the back of Shigaraki’s hand that wasn’t covered up by a partial glove. He didn’t even lean down to kiss his hand, fearful of how that might damage their relationship further.

(Of course, what Yotsubashi didn’t know was that their relationship hadn’t been damaged at all by this predicament. He had been assuming that their relationship was damaged because he had pressured Shigaraki to give an answer he clearly didn’t want to let slip, and now Shigaraki was refusing to even let him speak for fear of being forced to let go of any more secrets that he was never supposed to let out. But in Shigaraki’s mind, their relationship was almost stronger because of this, because Shigaraki knew that if Yotsubashi had never pried that answer out of him, he might end up hurting himself and Yotsubashi further than they had already been hurt up to this point.)

And there Shigaraki laid, eventually falling asleep on the bed, surrounded by warmth and swallowed up by a heavy blanket. And there Yotsubashi sat, holding Shigaraki’s hand in his and desperately trying to scrounge up an answer as to why Shigaraki would want himself to die in the first place.

~***~

Chikazoku sighed softly, leaning against the wall to the left of the door to Shigaraki’s room. He had a hand partially obscuring his face on the top half, although the action was mildly redundant, considering that his eyes were now covered by both his bangs and his hand. He and Hanabata had been standing outside of Shigaraki’s room yet again, the door slightly ajar so they could peek in, and only moments after the pair arrived, Shigaraki was finally willing to speak.

Naturally, they listened in.

“So,” Hanabata said after a few moments of excruciating silence, “Shigaraki went out of the villa with the intention of killing himself.” He turned to face Chikazoku, who still had his hand over his eyes, and therefore couldn’t tell Hanabata was looking at him. “Well, then? You had to have known with what you said to me the other day. So out with it, then.”

Chikazoku didn’t speak for a moment. He was either not wanting to say something and eventually decided to speak up or he as contemplating how to word what was about to come out of his mouth. And when he finally did speak, it seemed to be the latter, but it brought two other possibilities along with it. He was either lying to make himself look better in this situation, or he was telling the brutally honest truth. “Well, I knew he had to have left the villa on his own, and I knew that Yotsubashi had nothing to do with him doing so. Of course, I never figured he would try to kill himself via drowning.”

Giving Chikazoku the benefit of the doubt and telling himself that the other man was giving him the most truthful answer, Hanabata let out a sigh and put his hands in his jacket pockets. “Well, the only logic behind him leaving without a vehicle being missing was that he left on his own. But tell me, Tomoyasu… how did you know that Yotsubashi was unrelated to this entire incident?”

“Because I had suspicions of the reasoning behind his initial disappearance.” He said it nearly immediately, indicating that both this answer and the prior answer were most likely the truth. “You see, we were in a meeting with someone else, and that someone made a comment without his knowledge of Shigaraki’s… identity, shall I say? And it pissed him off so badly that he just left without even excusing himself.”

Hanabata got the essence of what he was trying to say, but being the little shit he was, he wanted more than just the essence of Chikazoku’s statement. “Identity, you say,” he said, vaguely but not exactly repeating Chikazoku’s previous set of words. “Are you referring to his sexuality? Or is he secretly considering himself a girl?”

“Not like that, Hanabata,” Chikazoku said in a tone that seemed like a mix of shock and frustration. “Actually, quite the opposite. Shigaraki was born female and transitioned to being male later in life. And we were in a meeting with higher employees of Detnerat, and one of those higher employees made a comment about how trans women were glorified drag queens and trans men were glorified tomboys. We barely got into the actual meeting before Shigaraki left, and he didn’t even say anything before doing so.”

“…well, that’s highly unprofessional, isn’t it?” Hanabata noted, putting a finger to his chin and looking up at the ceiling in thought. “I want you to tell Yotsubashi about this. He needs to fire that employee and help Shigaraki get back up on his feet.”

“…you’re right. That may be the best solution.” Chikazoku sighed and stepped away, pulling out his phone to make a phone call to Yotsubashi.

~***~

Chikazoku called Yotsubashi not long after he left the hallway outside Shigaraki’s room, and when Yotsubashi found out what had happened just before that business meeting, he was- well, “furious” didn’t even begin to describe it. He wanted nothing more than to crush that employee under the heel of his boot, and he wanted nothing more than to tell Shigaraki everything was going to be okay. He definitely couldn’t do the first thing until he had a name (which Chikazoku said he was working on retrieving), but right away, he went back to Shigaraki and began to attempt comforting him.

Yotsubashi didn’t say a word as he opened the door back up and went back over to Shigaraki’s bedside, sitting down in his normal chair and taking Shigaraki’s right hand in both of his. He just stayed there for a while, both not wanting to break the silence and also contemplating how he was going to bring this up with Shigaraki. Obviously, this was a very stressful topic for the younger boy, considering that it was mostly likely the reason that Shigaraki had attempted suicide those four days from this point. Yes, it had been a long and rather grueling four days since Shigaraki had left and been found at the bottom of the frozen pond in the park, and it had only been two and a half day since Shigaraki had woken up. He was still rather sick; he had a near constant fever, a light cough, and couldn’t stop falling asleep due to a lack of energy (and also with contribution from the fever), but he was very much alive, and would eventually make a full recovery. Yotsubashi never wanted to leave his side… at least, not until he completely recovered.

After a few moments of sitting in silence, Yotsubashi finally spoke. “Shigaraki. Chikazoku was the one who called me just a moment ago. And he informed me that you left a meeting around a week ago because one of the employees of Detnerat made some comments that you… did not agree with at all.”

Shigaraki didn’t speak for a moment or so. It seemed to be a combination of him wondering if he wanted to even give a response and him struggling to stay awake long enough to keep the conversation going. “That’s right,” he merely said at first, pausing for a handful of seconds before picking up and adding onto it. “He said things like what my master would have said, you know? The kinds of things that make you sad. The kinds of things that make you angry. The kinds of things that only asshole bigots agree with. The kinds of things… that make you want to kill yourself after you’ve heard them too many times over.”

“So it’s true, then,” Yotsubashi said, his final word coming out wrapped in a heavy sigh. “You attempted suicide because he said something that you felt bad hearing?”

“It wasn’t that I felt bad hearing it. It made me feel that I was a waste of space. That maybe I was wrong to transition the second I was able to. That maybe I was meant to stay Tenko. More than anything else, that I was meant to stay Tenko. When people say transphobic shit like that, it makes me wish that Master—and to some extension, Father—had gone further than yelling and slapping and spankings. It makes me wish that they put me in my place early on by telling me what I was meant for. What I was born to be. I was born to be Tenko. I was meant to be Tenko. But I rejected that to become Tomura… and the words that some people say make me think that I made a mistake by doing that. That I ruined my life by making myself into who I am now.”

Yotsubashi frowned. During everything Shigaraki said, he never spoke a word. He never tempted to interject. He only nodded, rubbed his fingers over the back of Shigaraki’s right hand, and listened to everything he had to say. This wasn’t just him giving Yotsubashi a simple “yes” or “no” answer, but rather it was him venting out his feelings and frustrations to someone whom he trusted with this information. This was something that Yotsubashi had no right interrupting (because it was important for Tomura to let off his chest) and something that Yotsubashi had no right to comment on (because he didn’t know exactly what Tomura was going through due to never having any experience of his own).

After a moment, Shigaraki began to speak again. “It was just unbearable. I wasn’t forced to think about these things for so long because every villain I had ever worked with was so supportive of me. And this this happens after years, and it all just came flooding back. Ho much Master hurt me, both on my body and in my mind. How much my father hated me just for existing and wanting to be something other than what he wanted me to be. And how much I felt I had fucked up just by wanting to be Tomura and not Tenko. So… I went out of the villa. I made my way down to the park. I was just planning to sit out there and eventually die of exposure… but I slipped, I fell back, and I went through the ice. I didn’t try to live. I was just going to let myself drown and let the water consume my body. But then… you saved me.”

Yotsubashi sighed softly at that, finally feeling that he had to make a statement of some kind. “I did what I had to, yes… but I also did what I wanted to. I didn’t want you to die, Tomura.”

“…do you love me?”

“What?” He was brought aback by that question. Never in a million years would he have expected Shigaraki to ask him that, and certainly not following a conversation like the one that had occurred just seconds prior.

“I know you heard me, Yotsubashi. Do you love me?”

(The answer? Yes. he was miserably smitten with Shigaraki, but he knew they would never go beyond holding onto one another as they slept and spending every available moment in the sheets. All he was to Shigaraki was a sex buddy, and he had no shame in admitting that he knew that. What he did have shame in admitting, however, was that he was madly in love with Shigaraki. He had been madly in love with the younger man ever since their first night in the bedroom. They had started with kissing and undressing, and from the very second his lips met the other set, he knew that Shigaraki was the one for him… but he was not the one for Shigaraki, and it broke his heart to know that. Still, Shigaraki wanted the truth, so the truth he would get.)

“…yes,” Yotsubashi admitted, letting out a soft breath. “Yes, I love you. I’ve loved you ever since the first night we spent alone. That first night was pure bliss, yes… but my love for you is more than just for your body. My love for you extends far beyond that. I fell in love with your smile, and your willingness to fight back, and the fact that you’ll ever take anything from anyone. I fell in love with you… and the way you look is just the cherry on top for me. I… I am in love with you, Tomura Shigaraki.”

Shigaraki had started to sit up part of the way through Yotsubashi’s confession, and was now sitting up completely straight and blushing furiously. The answer he had expected was certainly not a positive one, and he was most certainly not expecting the passionate love confession he had just received. He had over his left hand to his chest in a dramatic action of complete shock, and his jaw was dropped to match. After a moment of taking it in, he let out a chuckle. It was one of those laughs that could hardly be considered a “laugh”, and was more accurately described as “a single syllable sound of amusement”. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Yotsubashi couldn’t love him… no matter how desperately he wanted it to be true.

“You have to be lying to me,” he said with another single syllable chuckle following. “It just can’t be true.” He could feel tears starting to make their way out of his eyes and begin traveling down his cheeks.

Yotsubashi, for the first time since Shigaraki had left the villa that fateful night, climbed up onto the bed, careful not to pull on the cannulae connecting the IV in Shigaraki’s arm to the fluid bags as he did so. He sat himself to Shigaraki’s right, and wrapped his right arm around him from behind, using his left hand to reach behind Shigaraki’s head and nudge it towards Yotsubashi’s own. And with that simple action, both mens’ sets of lips were touching. Shigaraki was going to consider it their first kiss—after all, any other “kisses” that they’d had up to this point were only ever made in the heat of passion, and were only ever done to make them even hornier for one another than they had been before. But this? This was a real kiss, and it signified that for the first time, they were more than just friends with benefits.

~***~

“Yotsubashi.”

Chikazoku and Yotsubashi had just left a meeting, and they were finally allowed to have a personal, non-business related conversation. At this point, it had been two weeks since Shigaraki had fallen through the ice, and the younger boy had made a complete recovery (and, as Hanabata put it, he was “back on his bullshit”). Simply put, Yotsubashi had no explanation as to why Chikazoku was pulling him aside, considering there was nothing to worry about regarding Shigaraki.

“Oh, yes!” Yotsubashi kept up his cheerful and manly mildly professional demeanor. He wasn’t going to break character unless he absolutely had to or unless something completely shocked him out of it. “What seems to be the issue, Chikazoku?”

“It’s regarding Shigaraki. He messaged me during the meeting. He said that when you were done, he wanted to see you in his office… whatever that means.” Chikazoku said it with a light wave of the hand. Shigaraki didn’t actually have an office, so the words meant nothing to Chikazoku.

But Yotsubashi knew exactly what he meant, and left with a nod of the head, heading down the hall to meet up with Shigaraki. Eventually, he made his way to the younger boy’s room, which (thankfully) no longer had any medical equipment within, and its only contents were going to be a blue-haired boy laying on the bed. With a small smile, Yotsubashi knocked on the door, waiting there until he heard a brief “come in”, and then opened the door, seeing Shigaraki laying on the bed, wearing nothing but his chest binder and a pair of boxers.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Shigaraki said in a breathy tone, sitting up and turning to look at Yotsubashi. “Are you ready to get down to business?”

Yotsubashi closed the door and gave a soft smile. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”