When Eijirou Kirishima woke up that morning, he expected to spend it lounging around the apartment, having some lazy sex and maybe going out for dinner. He had not expected to receive the worst phone call of his life.

Kirishima yawned widely and stretched, frowning when something didn't feel right. Not only was Bakugou not beside him, the empty space was cold. He looked at the clock; it was early, 6:10 in the morning to be precise. But Bakugou's night patrol was only scheduled until 4:30. Even accounting for paperwork and travel time, he should have been home by now.

He got out of bed and shuffled to the living room. Maybe he'd fallen asleep on the couch? If so, that was unforgivable, Kirishima declared. How dare he try to deny him his morning snuggles?

Sadly, there was no peacefully sleeping spiky-haired blonde to be found on his couch. The apartment was completely silent. He was getting alarmed now. Heading back into the bedroom, he started searching for his phone, cursing his habit of leaving clothes on the floor. He finally found it in his bed under the nest of blankets he'd created. Of course, he'd left it on silent.

His screen was flooded with notifications. The most recent one was a text message from Midoriya.

Kirishima, call me as soon as you get this. It's about Kacchan.

He made it to the hospital in record time. His curly-haired friend was waiting outside, still dressed in his hero costume and sipping a coffee. The tightness around his eyes indicated a lack of sleep.

"Follow me, I'll explain on the way," he said, wasting no time on pleasantries. He spoke in a constant stream of words, leaving no opportunity to ask questions.

"The League of Villains struck last night, just to show off their new recruit and rile people up. But this new guy, we have no idea what his quirk is. Kacchan went in to attack and then he just collapsed. I went after him, but that warp gate guy evacuated them before I could. Ok, this is his room. This might come as a shock."

Shock didn't even begin to cover it. Apart from some minor scrapes on his arm and forehead, he looked perfectly fine. He'd been changed into a hospital gown and hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor. His eyes were closed, and his expression was peaceful. You'd think he was sleeping, until you noticed that the heart monitor was silent.

The room was spinning. Kirishima vaguely felt Midoriya's arm encircle his waist. He couldn't form a coherent thought; his brain was screaming a constant wordless denial, refusing to accept what that yawning silence meant.

His chest hurt. His knees hit the cold tile floor. Midoriya was talking to him, but his voice was distorted like they were underwater. He couldn't breathe. Darkness was bleeding into his vision.

"Katsuki…Katsuki…"

He awoke on the floor, sitting upright against the wall. Midoriya was kneeling in front of him, speaking in a soothing voice.

"I'm really sorry Kirishima, I should have given you more warning. The doctor is here now, he can explain more if you're feeling up to it."

A cup of water was pressed into his shaking hands and gently guided to his lips. The doctor was a short man with a heavily lined face.

"We are perplexed by Mr. Bakugou's case. We have run every test we can think of. Mr. Bakugou has no broken bones, no signs of trauma, no traces of lethal substances in his blood, no blocked airways. From a medical standpoint, it appears that he literally dropped dead."

Kirishima flinched, dropping the cup. Midoriya shot the doctor a dirty look but didn't interrupt him.

"The reason we still have him on the IV and heart monitor is that he may still be alive. For example, his skin is colder than that of a living person, but considering the time that's passed since the incident, it isn't as cold as it should be. And his colouring is still healthy, a corpse would have taken a blueish tint by now.

"We're wondering if this is the effect of somebody's quirk." Midoriya said quietly, "I'll be joining the search soon, but I figured you'd want to be here with him just in case."

Kirishima tried to smile. He thought it might crack his face.

"Thanks."

The hours crawled by agonizingly slow. He sat, he stood, he paced, he thumped his head lightly against the wall and still Katsuki never as much as twitched. Best Jeanist called sometime in the late afternoon to offer his sympathy and to say they were closing in on the League.

"I'm sure you weren't going to come in anyway, but don't worry about work for now. Focus on him and don't forget to eat something." There was a long pause while Kirishima pondered what those words meant. He was officially on grief-leave. His voice cracked when he spoke.

"Thanks."

As the news spread throughout the hero community, he received more and more phone calls from friends, asking how he was doing, if there was anything they could do to help.

He gently refused all offers of help, relating what little he knew so many times that he sounded like an answering machine. He stood by the window, staring outside without really seeing anything.

A tentative knock at the door startled him back to reality. At some point, the sky outside had gone dark.

It was Mina Ashido, holding a bento box. Oh yeah, she'd been one of the callers.

"No change?" She asked. Kirishima shook his head. "I know you said you don't need anything, but I also know that's a lie, so I brought you some dinner."

At the mention of dinner, his stomach growled loudly, accompanied by a series of sharp hunger pains. So, he let Mina usher him into a chair and hand him the box before pulling up a chair beside him.

"Thanks."

He was sure the food would have normally been delicious, but he barely tasted it, lethargically going through the process of chewing and swallowing. Mina's black and amber eyes watched him the whole time, making sure he ate every bite.

"I owe you an apology," Mina said when he was finished, gently taking the box back.

"Why?" Kirishima asked hoarsely, confused.

"In high school, the class talked about your relationship a lot." Mina admitted, "We all agreed that Bakugou needed someone like you. You were always so cheerful, but I should have known that didn't necessarily mean you were ok. We never considered how much you might need him." She reached up, lightly brushing her fingers over the tightness around his eyes. "I'm so sorry Kiri. I want you to know that I'm here for you, for anything at all."

He let her wind her arms around him, resting his head on her shoulder. Her embrace felt nice; warm and soft, but he couldn't look away from Bakugou's motionless body. His eyes stayed stubbornly dry.

Around 11:00, fatigue began to set in. His stomach was growling at him as if to say, "that's it?". The hospital was so quiet that he could hear the clock ticking. And still, still the heart monitor remained silent.

This was probably discouraged, but Kirishima couldn't bring himself to care. Taking care not to dislodge any of the tubes, he climbed into bed, snuggling up against Bakugou's side.

"I hate this." He whispered, "I need you to wake up and yell at me for something. You have to be alive, you just have to be."

No response.

"Come on Suki, this can't be the way you go. All you have to do is open your eyes. You can do that, can't you?"

No response.

His eyes stung, but still no tears fell.

"If you wake up, I swear I'll do whatever you want for a whole month. I'll cook dinner, clean the apartment, be your slave, just name it. I'd do anything to hear your voice again…Katsuki. My Katsuki…"

No response.

Kirishima jolted awake when he felt a hand brush his arm.

"Ei…ji…where 'm I?"

He sat upright, not daring to believe his ears. The heart monitor was beeping, steadily getting stronger. He turned on the bedside lamp and was greeted by two bleary red eyes.

Within the hour, the doctor arrived to examine Bakugou's vitals and to explain. While he'd been asleep, Midoriya's team had managed to capture the recruit and convince him to talk, in exchange for a lighter sentence.

"His quirk is called 'possum.' He can put his body into a deathlike state for up to forty-eight hours or plunge someone into the same state for up to twenty-four hours. It's less effective when he uses it on other people, which explains the symptoms we were confused by. We'd like to keep him under observation until morning, then we'll do one more checkup. If all is well, you'll be home by lunchtime." He smiled kindly. "Now, Mr. Kirishima, would you like us to bring in a cot for you?"

Kirishima shook his head at the same time Bakugou's arm tightened around his waist. Normally, they'd never be so openly affectionate; but today had not been normal. Being the smart man that he was, the doctor didn't push the issue further than that.

"You look like shit." Bakugou said gruffly, once they were alone again "go to sleep."

And he did, lulled to sleep by the steady beeping of the heart monitor. It was the second-most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.