Chapter Text
The following days before the date they agreed upon, Katsuki was sort of on edge. He was the one who gave him the go—ahead so they could see if this age regression thing really worked or not, but it was still freaky to think about. Now that everything was more or less normal again, Kirishima thought it’d be appropriate to give him a text that Friday before the date of their plan.
Katsuki wasn’t able to look at it in class because he wasn’t dumb enough to take out his phone and get caught by Aizawa. But when they were released to their next period class, he took out his phone to read his friend’s text which read,
uhh I forgot what flavor juice u like
It’s grape right?
He frowned at the message but sent back to him,
Yeah, why?
This left a gap of silence that left him waiting for a response until the redhead replied
it’s for the plan, you’ll see (- ‿ ◦)
Katsuki grimaced at his phone before he put it back in his pocket and went ahead to his next class.
Looking back, he should have questioned him more. But then again, it didn't take a genius to figure out what he was up to. Now he’s somewhat regretting that choice. He suddenly wants to ask Kirishima a whole bunch of questions about what they’re gonna do today, the day of their plan. This feeling of uncertainty is carried out when the afternoon arrives. They had never set a concrete time to do it today until Kirishima texted him,
hey, did u wanna do this at 4 pm or 5? yk my schedule is cleared so whichever time works for me lmao
Katsuki was sitting on the sheets of his bed when he got the message. He thought for a moment before he sent back,
4 pm
Kirishima sent him a thumbs up and that made him feel a little better somehow. Being able to control this whole thing made him way more confident about it. He looked at the clock on his phone and saw that he had about 15 minutes until they were supposedly going to start this. His mind went back to the forum they went on, which Katsuki spent a couple of hours looking over so he wasn’t going into this extremely blind. By the looks of it, all they had to do was surround him with a bunch of kiddy shit and that was gonna get it going.
Which is..fine.
But the only thing he couldn’t get ahead of Kirishima with was how Kirishima was gonna handle all this. The thought of his best friend treating him with literal child gloves made him squirm and wanna call the whole thing off and never talk about it again.
But he wasn’t a coward and everything’s already set at this point. Not only that, but the fact that he had no backup plan to this if it didn’t work out. So this was his only option to get things under control. That was just something he was gonna have to swallow down and brace through.
And so, he waited until 4 pm came along. To no surprise, Kirishima wasn’t there on the dot. Around five minutes passed before he heard a knock on the door. He silently gets up from his bed and opens it, eyes widening in shock as he sees that the redhead is carrying about two full bags of–stuff. He couldn’t see.
“Could you scooch over a little, I gotta put this stuff down.” Kirishima asked, to which Katsuki moved out of the way and let him come in, eyes still glued on the begs even after it set them down on his sheets.
“What the hell is all this? ” His hand gestured to the bags.
“All the stuff we need.” Kirishima answered and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Like what? ” He squinted at him in confusion.
“Oh, you know, like,” The redhead’s eyes wandered as he thought, “Crayons, some snacks, grape juice, pencils, that kind of stuff. Oh, and Hagakure gave me some DVDs. They’re just at the bottom so you can’t really see.”
Hearing this, Katsuki opened up the bags and dug his hands in there to look at everything. He sneered when he saw everything Kirishima just listed and more. A 16-pack of crayons, pencils, some small notebooks, sour gummy worms, small chocolate candies, a handful of grape-flavored juice boxes, a bowl, bags of pretzels, and some DVD cases of Ghibli movies.
Kirishima nervously scratched the back of his neck as he saw him searching through the bag. “I might have gone a little overboard, just a bit...”
Katsuki growled as he continued looking through the bags, “Why’d you have to go and get all this? There’s no way we need all this shit.”
“Pretty sure we do.” He disagreed with a shrug. “And most of this stuff I got from the others, so it’s no dent in my pockets or anything. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
The blonde grits his teeth, not being able to find a response, “Fine. ” then rolls his eyes. “So? Now what, how do we get this started or whatever.”
“Oh right, uhm.” Kirishima rested his finger under his chin as he pondered again, “It’s pretty simple, actually. All you have to do is stuff that a kid would normally do.” then dug the DVD cases out from the bottom of the bag. “That’s why I got these. I figured if you’re just watching cartoons it’d make it easier for you.”
The redhead gets off the bed and crouches down to the DVD player next to the television. His mouth quivers as he gets deja vu from that night after the festival incident when he put on a movie for his friend. “So, what’d you wanna watch?” He spread the cases out so the Katsuki could see.
Katsuki frowns at the DVDs. His only options were: The Secret World of Arrietty, Castle in the Sky, Ponyo, and Howl’s Moving Castle. Even as a little kid, he was never a fan of these gushy, softer movies. Just like his childhood friend Izuku, he was more into action-packed things.
Kirishima could tell by the look on his face that none of these movies were particularly speaking to him. “Uh, how about I just put on this one?” He pointed to Howl’s Moving Castle, “Me and Mina watched it once and it was pretty good. You might actually like it.”
Katsuki sighed, “Sure, whatever.”
Kirishima nods and pops the disc into the DVD player, then settles back into the bed next to his friend. “Hey, cheer up.” He jabs the blonde in his side to try and get rid of his sour expression. “If you’re all mad and tense then this won’t work.”
“Shut up...” Katsuki jabs him right back and looks at the television. He was trying to make an effort to pay attention to the movie like he saw Kirishima was, but it was boring him. He let out a sigh and leaned his head into the palm of his hand as his eyes focused past the television.
If this is really what they’re supposed to be doing, he can’t see how this is gonna work. He’s not feeling anything like how he felt that night when he slipped. Nothing in his stomach, his head, not even his chest. He figures it’s just because those were negative effects. But if that’s true then he won’t have any frame of reference if he felt the opposite of that–whatever he’s supposed to feel when he slips. Somehow he finds himself wishing his stomach was swirling again because at least it’d be something he’s familiar with.
“Nothing’s happening.” He finally spoke up.
“It’s not?” Kirishima responded, a little shocked. “Maybe ‘cause it hasn’t been that long? It’s only been like twenty minutes. Just be patient, man.”
“‘M not in the mood to be patient.” He crossed his arms. “Don’t forget that if you’re wrong and this doesn’t work, I’m gonna beat you to a pulp.”
The redhead nervously chuckled, very caught off guard. “C’mon, don’t be like that...” He grabbed a bag of sour gummy worms and tossed it to his friend. “Here, eat these. I know you like the sour ones.” He cheerfully added
Katsuki snatched it from the air and looked down at the bag and saw that Kirishima did get the ones he liked, even the apple-flavored ones. Begrudgingly, and to his friend’s enjoyment, he started eating a couple of them. In all his haste to double-check hose forums and see what this regression stuff was about, he’d forgotten to eat something after school was done. So getting to eat after all this time did ease his nerves a little.
“...Thanks.” He muttered.
A warm smile spread on Kirishima’s face. “Of course man, you’re welcome.”
The both of them shift their focus back to the movie after a little while. It really wasn’t that bad, and some parts of it were pretty exciting. Once he’d actually relaxed a little more, the afternoon felt a lot easier to get through. And when they’d gotten through the first half of it, Katsuki had gone through two bags of those sour candies already, which led Kirishima to take out that bowl from one of the bags he brought with him and poured the pretzels inside which made for a nice replacement for popcorn for them to eat throughout the movie.
“Oh hey,” Kirishima nudged the blonde a little, “This was Mina’s favorite part.”
Katsuki eyed him for ruining his focus but paid attention to the scene his friend was referring to anyway. It wasn’t anything special, just some romantic junk, which he wasn’t a huge fan of. But something about this movie was a little mesmerizing in a way. The visuals were flowy and gentle and the music was nice to listen to. Again, it wasn’t anything special but it was still sort of interesting. Maybe.
“Yeah.” He lightly admitted. “It’s cool, I guess.”
Kirishima just nodded in agreement and continued watching the movie. Once the gushy romantic stuff passed, it got back to being good again and Katsuki’s concentration got even stronger from there. The colors that were popping all over the screen, the soft voices of the characters, everything was drawing him in. His mind felt clearer somehow just watching it, and that made him feel better. Things felt lighter, almost. He couldn’t put his finger on it right this second, but it felt like something deep inside him was weakening its hold.
At that moment, he didn’t pay it any mind and tried to shift his focus back to the movie. But in doing so, that grip that was released inside of him was introducing something else. Something familiar but much more delicate. And whatever that something is was coming in a little too fast.
Katsuki’s fingers go to grip the fabric of his sweatpants as he attempts to control this feeling, but it isn't going away. His eyes dart over to Kirishima to maybe nonverbally let him know something’s wrong, but he’s so focused on the movie just like Katsuki was a second ago that he can’t see what’s happening. His eyebrows twitch as he’s now frantically trying to search for some kind of reason that this is going on. But now his mind’s all fuzzy. Some kind of fog is starting to spread in his mind and it makes him trying to remember this feeling all the more difficult.
“I’m–”
Until suddenly it hits him, almost like a truck.
“It’s happening, I’m slipping. ”
Kirishima whips his head around to look at him at Katsuki as the silence is now broken. His face slowly goes from plain confusion to a suddenly distressing worry as his friend was now somehow, in the blink of an eye, frightened.
“Hey, hey, it’s fine!” Kirishima hurriedly tries to put him at ease.
Katsuki tries to keep his composure but he can’t. Nothing was really wrong, it’s almost the same as the last time he’d slipped, but this time he was fully alert. Being face to face with it felt strange and this new anxiety was starting to mix with the delicate process of slipping and he didn’t know how to handle it.
He shook his head to try and get rid of his discomfort. “I can’t it feels different than before, I..” He says under his breath with a shudder.
Now Kirishima’s really starting to get worried. “It’s because you’re nervous. You gotta relax,” He tries to reach out to his friend, but that only alarms him and sends him moving away until his back hits the pillows against his headboard.
“I can’t." His voice waivers. Before, everything was slow and gentle and it was going just fine. But he’s only slipped once before and it wasn’t under the best conditions, and of course, the point of this afternoon was to get him to regress, but it caught him off guard. And now everything feels distressing.
Kirishima stares at him with wide eyes as he has no idea how to alleviate the situation. He couldn’t even tell if Katsuki was his normal age or if he was already a kid at this point.
Unbeknownst to Kirishima however, Katsuki was already far down from slipping. He was dropping. That lost, crying kid who introduced himself that night at the festival was sitting right there, legs curled into his chest with no idea how to slow this whole thing down.
“Hey.” Kirishima calls out, shakily, not even knowing if he’s saying the right thing, “You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
“No! ” He shouted, his fear turning into frustration as he found himself not knowing how to handle all these new feelings and resorting to throwing a short tantrum by clenching his fists and kicking out his feet.
“I don’t feel okay! I feel,” His breath hiccups, “I feel bad! And my head feels fuzzy, and everything is too fast and weird and...” then stops for a moment as his words fight their way out of his throat. “...And I’m scared.”
Kirishima’s lips wobble and he doesn’t realize that his eyes start to water a little, his heart squeezing as he stares futilely at his distressed friend. He thinks to try and reach out again, but he knows that's only going to make him panic more.
“I want... ” Katsuki urges, hugging his legs and hiding his face behind his knees. “I want my...” He tries to finish but finds he’s unable to and opts to continue his futile attempts to obscure himself.
‘He wants something? ’ Kirishima thinks to himself. In his hurry, he somehow doesn’t immediately figure out what Katsuki meant by that. What does he need?
He frantically looks around the room for something, anything to calm Katsuki down. His eyes light up with realization as they lock on that red shark plushie, just idly sitting on the floor near his desk. He immediately jumps off the bed and snatches it off the ground, then moves to Katsuki’s side as he tries to show it to him, despite the blonde’s eyes being clenched shut with tears brimming on the edges.
“Look. I got it for you.” Kirishima shakes him gently on the shoulder to get his attention. It takes him a moment, but Katsuki finally peeks through his damp eyelashes to see what he’s holding. His eyes go wide with recognition and he removes his hands from around his legs so that he can reach out for his plushie, desperately pleading for it with watery eyes and grabbing hands.
“Here.” The redhead gently hands it to him and he watches Katsuki wrap his arms around it in a needy embrace.
That night at the festival when Katsuki was holding onto this shark plushie as he cried, he felt like the world around him was almost empty. His friends were nowhere to be found and in his childish state of mind, he truly believed that everyone was leaving him behind. That he was truly, unequivocally alone. His long-forgotten childhood family member was there to help him, but it didn’t heal the wound he hadn’t revisited until that night. The memory of something that was still out of reach.
The wound still hasn’t gone away. And it won’t for a long while. But it helps that right now, his plushie is with him again in his arms. It soothes the hurt and it clears all the bad feelings in his now purer, naive head. And it helps that this time around, he isn’t alone. That his friend is by his side this time, patiently and earnestly.
He catches a glimpse of Kirishima, whose eyes never left him for a minute. He had his hand on Katsuki’s back the entire time and was waiting for him to acknowledge him again.
“Do you feel better?” He looked at the blonde attentively as he firmly waited for an answer.
Katsuki rubs his eyes to wipe away his unshed tears. “...Yeah.”
The corners of Kirishima’s mouth lift into a smile. “Good.”
It takes a few moments for Katsuki to relax his body at last, uncurling his legs and allowing them to lie plainly on the sheets. He releases a breath and then looks ahead like his mind is wandering.
Silence fills the room as Katsuki’s too busy staring off into space and Kirishima’s internally trying to figure out where to go from here. He did it, he actually regressed. But the challenging part comes with actually handling him now that he’s little. He doesn’t even know how old he feels.
So he should probably ask.
“Uh, hey buddy?” Kirishima calls out to him, curiously.
Katsuki looks over at him with a kind of calm innocence in his eyes that he’s never seen from his friend before.
“So,” His eyes wander, not knowing how to ask. “How old do you feel?”
Katsuki’s eyes slowly shift away from the other as it looks like he’s trying to figure that out himself. He then gently hooks his plushie under one arm and shows the redhead his palm. Kirishima looks at him puzzled before Katsuki finally says, “Six.”
Last time he checked, you only have five fingers on each hand so he asks cautiously, “Uh, do you mean five? Or six.”
Katsuki looks plainly confused for a moment as he looks at his hand, then back at Kirishima with an irritable expression. “Nuh–uh. Five. ”
He holds back the urge to correct him at all and lets out a breath through his nose, smile returning. “Good to know. So, what’d you wanna do now?”
He fiddles with the fabric of his shark as he ponders what to do until Kirishima chimes in with his own suggestions,
“We could keep watching Howl’s Moving Castle if you want, you looked like you were really into it. Or, I bought a bunch of crayons and some paper with me so you could draw something. Oh!” He snapped his finger as he suddenly remembered. “There’s some more pretzels in the bag and those juice boxes if you were still hungry. I don’t think you finished all those sour candies yet so you..uh...?”
He stopped in the middle of his rambling as he saw that Katsuki was looking a little overwhelmed all of a sudden.
“Oh.” Kirishima nervously scratched the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to spring all that on you at once. How about this?” Katsuki looked at him curiously as he continued, “We still got some pretzels and the movie’s not over yet. Let’s just keep watching the movie, huh?”
Katsuki got noticeably less tense and nodded.
Don’t ask too many things at once, keep things simple. Got it.
Hearing that they would continue watching that movie, Katsuki’s attention was completely drawn in. He nodded in response and moved so he could lie down stomach first on his sheets. His arms were still wrapped around his plushie as he sat it under his chin and watched the movie. Once Kirishima saw that he was comfortable, he happily sat right next to the other. Except this time around he wasn’t all too focused on the movie, instead focusing his attention on Katsuki. He didn’t wanna take the chance and risk him freaking out somehow like he did before. He’ll admit, his nerves are a little on edge after having to calm him down, but now he’s extra attentive. Now he’s super focused.
That is until he realizes he’s a little hungry himself and goes to grab a small baggie of pretzels in one of the plastic bags that he’s just noticed fell on the ground near the bed. And as soon as he’s finished reaching down and sitting back up on the sheets, he sees that Katsuki’s sitting in a completely different way. He sat up with his legs and arms out in front of them. The only way Kirishima could describe it was like watching a baby discover ‘oh yeah, I have hands and feet’.
“What’s wrong?” Kirishima asks.
Katsuki hums. “I feel little...but my arms and legs are all big.” His biggest dilemma right now seems to be the fact that he isn’t entirely used to feeling so small.
Kirishima blinks at this, “Oh, well...that’s because...” trying to figure out how to respond with something that’ll appease him. Katsuki stares at him until a light bulb goes off behind the redhead’s eyes. “That’s because you’re hero-sized! Yeah!” He cheerfully induces, “Your arms and legs are big because you’re big and strong, like a hero.”
Katsuki’s eyes glistened as his face lit up with bliss. “...Really?”
“Yeah, dude.” Kirishima playfully nudges him.
That confidence lights a fire under Katsuki as a huge, triumphant smile slowly spreads on his face. “Yeah! ” He cheers, pumping his fist in the air.
Kirishima smiles to himself as that small praise seems to have really lifted his spirits. And he can’t help but notice how Katsuki gleams when he’s happy like this. It kind of makes his heart feel warmer, and now he wants to make sure his friend is like this for the rest of the night.
“Hey, you liked that part where Howl gets his hair messed up, right?” Kirishima remarks, referring to when Howl’s hair accidentally went from jet black hair to ginger and he whines about it. He grabs the remote and rewinds to that moment, to Katsuki’s amusement.
The blonde nods as he goes back to lying on his stomach “Yeah, it’s funny.” He says with a smirk on his face.
Kirishima gets to watch that scene replay as well as listen to Katsuki giggle placidly into the fabric of his shark plushie.
This moment is when the night really begins. When Katsuki can let himself be open and vulnerable. When he can smile and laugh without fear of judgment or being seen as weak. With Kirishima’s help, he’s allowed himself this catharsis, to be a little kid.
It’s after the movie is finished that Katsuki's true child-like spirit starts to come out. Kirishima gets out the paper and the little crayon box and gives it to him to do whatever he wants. This time he lies on the floor, again stomach first, so his paper is on hard, stable ground, and starts doodling these chaotic stick figure drawings with explosions and such.
Kirishima watched him draw until he started to go and clean up the little pretzel crumbs from the sheets of his bed, knowing that big Katsuki likes his things clean. Until Katsuki comes over and roughly pats him, urging him, “You need to watch me draw.”
“You got it. Just let me clean this up real quick?” Kirishima cooly asks.
Katsuki pouts his lips but quietly goes back over to his drawings. Except now he’s got a little bit of an attitude.
‘Does he…not like it when I don’t pay attention to him? ’ Kirishima thinks to himself.
After fighting to hide his smile to himself, he finishes cleaning up the bed and goes to sit next to Katsuki, who’s gone onto a whole new sheet of paper.
“What'cha drawin’?” The redhead asks him. Katsuki points the red crayon in his hand towards a stick figure with crazy spiky hair and gauntlets for hands with explosions shooting out of them.
“Me. I’m beating up all the bad guys and blowing them up.” Then he points to a different one, “This is one of the bad guys. He’s dumb and slow so I nabbed him!”
“Nice...” Kirishima nods, looking across the other sheets. “You drew all this? You’re pretty creative for a five year old.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Heh, okay...” He chuckles at how arrogant his friend is, even now. “Is it cool if I use one of those?” Referring to one of the crayons in the box.
Katsuki just nods and goes back to his sheets of paper. Every few minutes or so he would look over and see what Kirishima was sketching on his paper. The redhead wasn’t the best artist, but compared to a five year old it was a little impressive.
“Is that a dragon?” Katsuki pointed at Kirishima’s paper.
He nodded, “Uh–huh. You think it’s cool?”, watching how the other’s pupils dilated at his art.
“It’s alright…” Katsuki shrugged, looking at his drawings. “Beating up bad guys is way cooler though.”
They leave each other alone for a little while. Katsuki grabs himself one of the little grape juice boxes as he’s doodling on his pages. At some point, Kirishima is so busy making his dragon that he loses focus on Katsuki. It’s kinda peaceful just like this. In the corner of his eye, he can see Katsuki shuffling over to him but doesn’t pay any mind to it until he feels the soft teeth of the shark plushie on his arm.
“Wha..” He looks down at the shark and then at his friend’s face.
With a straight, completely serious face, Katsuki tells him, “The shark bit you.”
There’s a beat of silence between them as Kirishima stares at him, almost actionless until a thrilled smile spreads across his face as he dramatically throws himself backward on the floor, grabbing the arm where he was ‘attacked’.
“Nooooooo! ” He hisses, “Aghh, you got me right in my arm! How could you!?”
Katsuki giggles with a hand over his mouth as he watches Kirishima roll back and forth on the floor in fake pain. Until he suddenly jumps up and pounces on him, shouting, “I’m gonna get you!”
Katsuki quits his laughing as Kirishima starts roughhousing with him. Of course, not too much so that he doesn’t hurt him but enough to get him riled up. Which he does. The rowdy little immediately starts tussling with him. But what makes Kirishima smile even more is the fact that instead of fighting like how he usually fought, it was exactly like fighting a little kid. He was just slamming his fists at him or slapping him around as if that was gonna hurt him.
The childish squabbling goes on between them with no breaks in between for about ten whole minutes until Kirishima lets him win and calls out ‘uncle, uncle! ’ so that Katsuki can let him out of his hold.
“Ha! I beat you!” Katsuki triumphantly shouted as he caught his breath, leaning backward with his palms behind him.
“Yeah, yeah.” Kirishima quipped, “You better keep that shark on a leash next time, or I'll get it too.”
Katsuki looks shocked for a moment before he pouts. “Actually, he’s a boy. He’s not an it. ”
That wasn’t a response he expected. “Oh. Heh, my bad.” Kirishima chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. The only reaction he got was a ‘hmph’ and he left it at that.
After they both settle down, Kirishima looks over at the clock on the nightstand beside the bed and sees it says ‘7:00'. He’s a little surprised at how long it’s been since they started, but it made sense with how long the movie was and everything they did after all that. It was time to finally wind down for the night.
“You wanna watch some cartoons?” Kirishima asks.
Katsuki nods and starts cleaning up his papers and crayons that are scrawled out across the floor in front of him. Meanwhile, Kirishima goes ahead and grabs another one of the DVDs from a bag. It was the type that had an entire season of episodes on it, and he mentally thanked Hagakure for having this.
By the time he pops the DVD in, Katsuki’s putting all his drawings on his nightstand and hands Kirishima the now full box of crayons. He’s thankful that he was able to clean up on his own and sits back on the bed with Katsuki as he puts the crayons back inside the bag, watching the cartoon begin. Thankfully, Hagakure has a niche for action shows, because that grabs Katsuki's attention just like the movie from before. And just like Howl’s Moving Castle, it didn’t take much for Kirishima to get invested in it too, not too childish or anything like that.
At some point, Kirishima finally turns off the light from the nightstand and everything’s peaceful. But even though the room is dim, aside from the light coming from the television, he starts to notice Katsuki suddenly looks a little weary. His best guess is he must’ve exhausted himself a little from all the play-fighting they did earlier.
But Kirishima can’t help but poke fun at him anyway, “You getting tired over there?”
Katsuki wipes all the tiredness away from his face as he grimaces at Kirishima. “No...”
Kirishima just hums in response and focuses some of his attention back on the cartoon. But after a little while, something tells him to look over, and he sees that Katsuki’s eyelids are getting a little droopy.
Finally, Kirishima says, “Okay, I think it’s about time you go to bed. It’s getting kinda late.”
But of course, he responds with a frown, “I don’t wanna.”
“C’mon, you don’t feel a little tired? You don’t even feel like lying down just a little bit? ” The redhead squints his eyes to emphasize his point.
“Uh–uh!” The blonde petulantly responds with crossed arms as he shakes his head.
Kirishima reluctantly sighs and rolls his eyes. “Alright, if you say so...”
Katsuki scowled at him one last time before his eyes looked back towards the television. It barely took two minutes for his eyes to start getting heavy again and it was becoming increasingly harder to stay focused on the show after a while. He waits just a little bit longer until he knows Kirishima isn’t watching him before he slowly shuffles himself under the thick comforter on his bed. He doesn’t fully lie down so that he can prove he isn’t tired, so he leans on his elbow to keep watching television.
Kirishima tries to hide his smirk, but Katsuki notices anyway and spitefully states, “I’m only doing this ‘cause I want to!”
“I didn’t even say anything.” The redhead chuckles before he leaves him alone again.
It’s not like he wants to fall asleep, but it’s hard to resist it. The cartoon is just stimulating enough that it keeps his attention but doesn’t awaken him further. The room is so dark and calm that it helps his eyes relax. Everything’s fighting him, even his eyelids.
Katsuki hums, trying to let out a sound so he can keep himself from dozing off, but it’s no use. His eyes have closed themselves and he doesn’t bother opening them anymore. Then he feels a hand oh so gently nudge him further into the bed until his head finally hits his sheets. He complains and barely stirs under the sheets, but he gives up shortly after.
But he realizes his hands are empty and that really bothers him. He instinctively closes and opens his fists as he lets out a whine for something. Luckily, his longing is cut short as hears a ‘sorry, here you go’ and then feels his plushie being tucked into his arms. He almost immediately goes and embraces it, settling his cheek in its fabric. Shortly after, he hears the rustling of some bags and the television being cut off abruptly, then more rustling and this prompts him to open his eyes just a little bit.
“Kiri…?” Katsuki murmurs into his plushie.
A hand waves itself in the air beside the bed from his obscured vision and he hears Kirishima’s voice reply, “Down here!”
Katsuki easily crawls to get to the side of his bed and looks down, just to see Kirishima pulling out a sleeping bag from the bottom of the bed and getting himself inside it.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” Kirishima gently reassures him as he settles into the bag, “I’ll be here when you wake up. Just get some sleep, okay?”
For the first time that night, Katsuki does just what Kirishima tells him to and cocoons himself deeper into his sheets, giving in to the drowsiness and allowing himself to fall asleep.
Through a crack in the blinds, a light shines through and hits Katsuki’s face, notifying him that it’s the next morning. He shifts just a little in the sheets and stretches stiffly as his eyes search the room for a moment.
That thing, or rather who he was searching for lets out a yawn as his red, messy hair somewhat hides his sleepy face. He groans, rubbing his cheek before he looks over at Katsuki. “Hey, man…’morning.” He mumbled in a hoarse voice. “Are you still feeling little?”
Katsuki wordlessly shakes his head at him.
“Oh, ok. That’s good. I didn’t wanna leave you alone in case that’s how you woke up. I dunno, I just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay.” Kirishima stretches a little bit, now smiling. “But hey, it worked! You got to regress and it wasn’t a total disaster…? But you still did it, so congrats.”
This time he subtly nods, keeping a vacant expression on his face. He was still listening to Kirishima but on the inside, he was thinking intently.
“But now that we’re done and you’re back to your usual self…how do you feel? ” Kirishima asked, carefully.
That was a loaded question for him right now, especially just waking up. But he wasn’t just gonna sit there like an idiot and not reply, so he pondered just a little more.
The whole thing was an experience, to say the least. It wasn’t anything he’d think he would ever try before or even need to do. But then again, he never thought he’d break down crying that night at the festival because he got himself lost, so with that, it wasn’t something newly bizarre. Thinking logically, this whole regression thing helped him. Or at least it was supposed to.
And it actually…did. Weighing the pros and cons of this whole thing aside, he felt different than before he went into it. Better, even. And that was something he didn’t expect, despite going into this looking for answers and a helpful solution. He almost couldn’t believe that it worked and he actually regressed. Being put in the backseat of his mind while under the supervision of his best friend was a little scary, he’ll admit that, but from his blurry memory, he remembered feeling safe. And although it was gross and downright made him wanna vomit from how gushy it was, that feeling of safety made his chest feel looser. Made his heart feel warmer, and made his brain stop going in tired circles about what he needed to do to get his shit under control.
He wasn’t dumb enough to believe that everything was gonna go away just like that. But the thought of helplessness wasn’t weighing down on him anymore. Something has lifted, some weight that he never acknowledged, far before all this shit started has let itself go.
Katsuki looks down at the shark plushie he doesn’t even realize he was still holding onto this whole time. He kind of wanted to chuck it at the wall in denial, but he couldn’t. He was finally gathering the courage to look at it and not be appalled or disgusted at it because for whatever reason now, it felt like it was a component of this whole thing. To revisit an avenue in his mind that he’s long forgotten, to somehow accept this regression stuff. It made him feel...
“I feel…” Katsuki muttered, hand bringing itself up to his chest. “Lighter. ”