Scars of Petals | Suicidal Todoroki x Bakugou | Hanahaki AU - BlitzyWolf - 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia (2024)

Chapter 1: Important Information

Chapter Text

If any of the tags make you feel uncomfortable, then I highly suggest refraining from reading this.

Hanahaki disease aspect:
If something I write doesn't follow the traditional ways, then consider it my own twist on the concept.
Note: there is quite the unconventional event that occurs, but I do have a reason for this.

Sexual content:
There are some scenes that might make you feel uncomfortable, and there will be rape involved in this story.

Errors in my writing?
Please let me know if you find any.

This fic is incredibly old, and the writing is horrendous.

Chapter 2: Prologue

Chapter Text

Shoto Todoroki
- Day 1 -

A thud. A vehement thud resounded through my abominably grandiose household like the irate snarl of thunder. Following the bedlam was the encroachment of incendiary, verbal blades into my mind and a tangible assault to my limbs, to put it candidly.

My morning prior to arriving at U.A. could have been prefaced with the sole mentioning of one name: Endeavor. The crass father of mine known as Endeavor was informed that his presence was of paramount importance for the next month in a Hero Agency located in the United States, and so ensued his ruthless lambasting of my every flaw. Although I was quite blasé about his ruthless remarks compared to a few years prior, my heart still throbbed in my chest.

“I cannot train such a godforsaken thing to surpass All Might without being present to train it,” he virulently maundered, speaking as though I never truly existed.

Endeavor would selectively shift between referring to me as an object of vanity and referring to me by name to ascertain proper emphasis on his ideals. I abhorred the fact that he was quite the astute man, and that he knew eerily well how to find new, effective methods to degrade me with. Even so, I hadn’t yet capitulated to hatred; my deceitfully idyllic thoughts never ceased to divert my path from such a forest of entropy.

After listening to Endeavor’s onslaught of pernicious statements that served as reminders of my asinine existence and how worthless of a failure I was to him and the world, he lunged at me like a feral beast of flame. Keen claws and somewhat dulled fangs perforated my arms and legs. Searing strands of scarlet were raked across my arms. The agonizing crunch of teeth grinding down into tendons and challenging bones pulsated through my body. Stifled gasps and whines spilled from my mouth while my vision was stained with a hazy film. Blood, saliva, and tears coalesced in the pungent odor of alcohol exuded from him. Separate from the fell liquid symphony was another vehement thud. That time, however, I was the hud.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

At last surfeited with his assault, Endeavor spat the words “f*cking worthless” before departing from the house and to America with fuming steps.

Combusting my punctual record at U.A. by what had already been a twenty-minute delay, I dressed my wounds for another fifteen minutes before texting none other than Katsuki Bakugou. I became acquainted with the arrogant ash-blonde approximately one or two weeks succeeding the Sports Festival of my first year at U.A. During lunch, he was simultaneously serendipitous and inauspicious upon noticing a small splotch of scarlet resting out of my view on my left shoulder. With a sneer, he’d inquired as to who the lucky lady was that I’d allowed to smudge lipstick on my shoulder. Instantaneously comprehending what Bakugou’s snide question had entailed for me, I swiftly scooped up my bag from the floor and took my leave. Bakugou appeared to have recognized the desperation razing my movements and presented to me a slew of volatile, yet notably attenuated questions.

Bakugou was not deterred from following me once I began to approach the bathroom. In fact, our seclusion from the rest silenced his irksome questions and allowed his true questions to emerge.

“What the hell happened to your shoulder?” he gruffly demanded while we entered the bathroom. “I know that’s blood. It’s already almost double the damn size it was when I pointed it out. Oi. I asked you a question, Todoroki. Don’t give me the goddamn silent treatment.”

“Do you mind?” I sighed, gripping the hem of my uniform to spare myself the grief of unbuttoning my blazer and removing the constituents of the upper half of the uniform one by one.

He crossed his arms, clicking his tongue. “The hell’s there to hide? Stop actin’ like such a girl. Do you really think you can effectively treat that yourself? Tch. It’d take you longer than we have left for lunch.” His garnet eyes traced along my injured shoulder.

Damn. “Then my sole request is that you stay your eyes on the wound on my shoulder and nothing else,” I muttered, my voice the prey of no emotion.

“Sure. Whatever. We don’t have all day, dammit.”

Forcing down the lump in my throat, I aridly exhaled as acute consternation seized my mind. Tugging my uniform over my head and jamming it into my bag, I frantically retrieved the medical supplies I kept on my person at all times.

“Well, sh*t,” Bakugou commented in a somewhat perturbed whisper. “The f*ck caused that?”

In contrast to my expeditious extraction of supplies, I languidly handed Bakugou the contents in my arms. “A bagatelle.” My eyes remained in observation of his own eye movements, and much to my stupefaction, his eyes hardly drifted.

“The f*ckin’ hole in your shoulder doesn't mean jack sh*t to you?” he hissed.

“It doesn’t matter. I ask that you make this prompt.”

“Tch.”

While a kind of silence neither affable nor disconcerting befell the two of us as Bakugou began to dress my wound, I glanced up into the mirror above the sink to observe his handiwork. “Thank you, Bakugou.”

His brows raised ever so slightly. “Don’t mention it. Really. Don’t say a damn word about any of this or the dirt’s gonna taste real nice.” Two spheres of ruby with an anomalous placidity met mine from the mirror before swiftly retreating.

“Might I ask why you were so keen on assisting me?”

With eyes enthralled by the bandages wrapping around my shoulder, he murmured, “Something didn’t sit right with me. If you won’t tell me why you have a goddamn hole in your shoulder, I ain’t obligated to give my rationale for this.” Perhaps it had simply been an illusion, but a fleeting breath of pink mantled his flesh reflected in the mirror.

How queer, I thought to myself. He initially sounded quite earnest and…kind, almost.

Once Bakugou quite literally wrapped up his work, I pulled my uniform back over my head and brushed my hands along the fabric to flatten some of the wrinkles. “Thank you for heeding my request,” I uttered, mustering up a feigned, slender smile.

What a daft smile, I internally reviled myself. It must certainly look forced. Why, then, did I entertain the thought of donning one? Why did I precipitously proceed with such a puerile thought? As it is, I don’t deserve the kindness he bestowed upon me, but I’m thankful for it.

He co*cked a brow at me. “Huh? Oi. That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile since the Sports Festival. Not like I did anything special.”

“Your eyes did not avert from the area I requested.” I knelt down to the unsanitary ground without touching any of my limbs to it in order to gather my belongings.

“Don’t brush off the latter half of what I said. The hell could I possibly have done to make you crack a smile? You never smile. Or you just don't smile when I’m in the room.”

Why is it that I feel so comfortable around him? “I could say the same to you. Nonetheless, I suppose you weren’t acting like such an ass to me? I didn’t believe that you would deign to lend anyone but Kirishima your hand.”

His countenance twisted up into a grim lour. “Tch. Don’t think I’m friends with sh*tty Hair. Don't think we’re friends, either. I just knew something was up with you, dammit. And guess who was right? Me.”

“Congratulations,” I sighed tersely, retaining my phlegmatic mien.

“f*ck you, too.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets.

Slinging my bag over my right shoulder, I gingerly murmured, “Sweetest thing you've said to me this year.”

“Oh, f*ck off.”

He seems so nettled, yet his mien looks different from usual. I like that expression of his. Perhaps it's the situation dictating such an unorthodox perception of mine.

“Might I remind you who it was that accompanied me?”

Bakugou slapped the palm of his hand across his forehead, sliding his hand upwards through his hair so that tendrils of ash-blonde poked through the gaps between his fingers. “Go to hell.” The white sheen of his teeth gleamed through his slightly curled lips.

Thus concluded my encounter with Bakugou that would eventually spark a nascent friendship between the two of us. Such an auspicious friendship was ameliorated greatly by our second year at U.A.

After informing Bakugou of my debilitated state, I made a headlong scramble to regain my composure and prime myself for my attendance before sprinting towards U.A. with excruciating steps. He replied to my text with: “f*ck. You okay? Get anything to eat?” I explained that I was fine, although undeniably hungry. His next response was along the lines of: “I swear to f*cking God! I’m going to beat the sh*t out of him one of these days.”

My stomach groaned indignantly, but my hunger was paltry to the irreversible minutes I would have spent scouring for any remnants to sate it.

It isn’t…his fault, I attempted to reassure myself while entering through the gates to U.A. Never once has he physically abused me when he’s been sober, so it’s all right. I cannot hope to forgive him for what transpired then, but I do not hate him, per se. I would prefer not to associate myself with him in any way, shape, or form, however. I might be acutely infuriated and displeased by him, but…

At last stumbling into the 1-A classroom an hour tardy and with a slight limp, I was considerably mortified once Aizawa began to approach me. “You look out of it. Did something happen?” he queried.

Yes, 'something' certainly happened. “No. I’m fine,” I muttered deceitfully while biting back the pain that ravaged my veins. “I—”

A vexatious voice transfixed my ears with a single sentence that, spoken solely to me, would have had minimal effects, but such a comment had been voiced for all to hear. “Like I said, the class structure really is falling apart,” remarked none other than Mineta.

Why did that…hurt so much to hear? A scalding shiver surged through my body. Endeavor has never rebuked me before an audience, I suppose. Still, it hurts far more than it leaves the acerbic taste of humiliation in my mouth. Why, though? Ah…

Drawing himself up from his seat like a livid cobra, Bakugou whipped his head around to face my verbal assailant. “You shut the f*ck up, Grape Juice,” he snarled tempestuously as venom dripped from his acrimonious words. “I’ll drag you to hell and back!”

He’s defending me? My heartbeat hastened. I feel so warm. I feel warm, but that does not thaw everything else I feel from cutting into my chest.

“Bakugou!” Iida shouted. “Please refrain from speaking in a hostile ma—”

Eyes of ruby alone sufficed as a middle finger to Iida. “Save the lecture, Glasses!”

“Bakugou,” Aizawa attempted to interject while Mineta slunk down into his seat.

Disregarding Aizawa’s implicated injunction, Bakugou vociferated, “The hell do you know about him and his reason for being late? You—”

With a somewhat hoarse voice, I cut into Bakugou’s reprisal. “Bakugou. It’s all right.” As his lips twitched with the intent of flying open again, I halted his advance. “I know. There is a more appropriate time for this.” Locking my gaze with the ground, I meandered towards my desk and internally supplicated that I would manage to suppress my limp.

Warm… I feel so warm with him. I feel safe. I feel…happy? No. Far from it. Why is it that he is always so kind to me? No. Not simply kind. Far, far more immense than ‘kind’ alone. He always tells me he’ll see me tomorrow, and not once has that been a lie. Simply knowing that he is there for me mitigates the pain that much more every day.

Once our class was provided a brief break before proceeding with our next subject, Bakugou approached my desk and tossed a package of dorayaki onto my desk as if flinging a frisbee. “Here. Bet you're starved from that piece of sh*t. Really, don't be so damn shy about coming over. Tch. Even my old hag likes it when you do.” He furrowed his brows and tilted his head to the side.

“Thank you, Bakugou. Truly. You have already done enough for me. I owe you…practically everything I have. I'd prefer—”

“What part of 'don't be so damn shy’ did you not understand?” His voice swung into a sonorous whisper. “Todoroki, you don't owe me anything. Not one damn thing. Got it?” I nodded, but the baleful thoughts streaming through my mind begged to differ. “Good. The last thing you are is a burden.” He scratched the back of his head lightly.

I feel so warm. I feel so very warm. I like this feeling. I like it a lot. I want to hold it fast and never release it. I like it. Still. You would not believe how much more you have done for me than I've allowed you to see. Bakugou, I was on the verge of executing a horrible decision. All it took to preclude the solidification of that decision…was for you to text me. You never would have forgiven me if I'd been devout to my plan.

Perishing the tenebrous thoughts milling through my mind, I shook my head. “Was my limp evident?” Vacantly staring down at the dorayaki in my hands, I released a soft sigh through my lips.

His eyes glanced skywards before settling back on me. “It was pretty f*cking obvious. Why'd you even show up? You should've taken a day off. It's one damn day.”

“You know what he would do if this happened to be disclosed.”

“You look like sh*t,” he huffed, briefly surveying the room. “They're glancin’ at you. Oi. Eat.”

I would prefer not to attract attention, but it seems that that is inevitable. “Ah. Are they? Sorry. Again, thank you for this. I am quite hungry.” I cleared my throat while an oddly satisfying crackle of the packaging in my hands pierced the air. “About earlier…”

With arms crossed, he drummed his fingers along his robust arms while I began to nibble away at the snack he'd blessed me with. “Look. That asshole of a perverse grape had no right to say that. I'd wring his goddamn neck if I could.”

I tore off another thin strip of the dorayaki with my teeth. “It’s fine,” I assured him as Kirishima began to approach the two of us.

“Like hell it is,” he seethingly whispered under his breath. “Oi. sh*tty Hair, whaddya need?” The softened, almost playful glance he presented to Kirishima was accompanied by the ghost of a ravishing smirk that twitched at the tips of his lips.

Dragged from my grasp by Kirishima, Bakugou’s figure marched towards the former’s desk. While the two were drawn elsewhere, Midoriya and Yaoyorozu advanced towards me with harrowed, grim expressions.

That was when I felt it. An abrupt twinge within the general vicinity of my sternum felt as if it had transiently ensnared my lungs with vines or perhaps even roots before dissipating. Once the unpleasant sensation had faded fully, a certain heftiness seized my chest and mind.

I suddenly feel incredibly drained. Bakugou, why is it that your beatific interactions with Kirishima cause my chest to ache? Most salient of these instances is today. I've never been afflicted by such a constricting feeling before. I've never…noticed how cold it is without your warmth.

Chapter 3: Everything Hurts

Chapter Text

Shoto Todoroki
- Week 1 -

An itch. Another ceaseless itch crawls through my chest like the feathery dance of arachnid legs weaving through flesh. Provoking such an odious sensation is the familiar sight of an avid Kirishima clinging tightly to an outwardly vexed Bakugou. Perhaps I'm simply delusional from the abrupt cognizance of the pervasive, recurring feeling, but it feels almost as though anomalous filaments of an unidentifiable, yet tangible thing flicker within my chest whenever I inhale or exhale in the presence of the two.

Again? I internally question while casting my gaze astray from Kirishima and Bakugou, who are sitting opposite from me at our lunch table. It's been a week since the first occurrence, yet it seems only to have been exacerbated. Am I developing some kind of respiratory disease? Clearing my throat, something flutters about from the depths of my chest. Or are these perhaps the budding symptoms of a cold? Then why does it feel as though I've inhaled a feather whenever I see them together? How peculiar.

With a minute shake of my head, I surreptitiously dismiss myself from the table and escort myself outside. While strolling through the halls, however, a jovial grin and cheeks peppered with freckles greet me; Midoriya sways his hand left and right while wiggling his fingers up and down.

"Hey, Todoroki-kun," he chuckles. "What brings you over here? Too loud in there?" He presses his thumb across a curled flap of blue tape stretched diagonally across the top right corner of an "inspirational" poster he's taping up on the wall.

I can feel something in my lungs, yet I cannot seem to expel it. "Fresh air," I reply with a desiccated voice.

"Is there something on your mind?" he asks, tilting his head like a curious puppy.

I shake my head. "Thank you for asking." Ambling outside into the lucent world of white tinged with yellow, I sit upright against the wall of the building and languidly exhale.

Another itch. Another ceaseless itch.

My next breath out feels as though the soft tip of a feather is caressing my chest like a comb brushing through hair. Such a sensation issues a bodily injunction to cough, and once I do, a few droplets of scarlet seep into my uniform. Eyeing my sleeve dappled in red, I flinch.

Blood? I ask myself, exceptionally bemused as to my current condition that would cause blood to spill from my lips. Strange. It's unfortunate that I'll have to change, but I cannot help but be irked by the fact that I'm unable to obviate this irksome thing that torments my chest.

Rising to my feet, I snap a glance at Midoriya's current location through the windows of the doors between us. Prior to enthralling his attention by opening the door, I select a direction to walk in that I presume will place the bloodied patch on my uniform at an angle invisible to him. Now re-entering the building, Midoriya waves at me again with his radiant smile. I muster up an expression akin to a smile that falls flat at the curved tips.

Silence fills the air while I stride down the hallway.

Once class concludes for the day, I walk home with Bakugou, who insists that I stay the night at his house. Hearing such a lovely invitation from him quickens the leaps of my fluttering heart. Although oscillating between agreement and disagreement to his proposal, I finally conquest my dubiety and offer him a nod.

"Damn old hag is out with my dad for the next two days," Bakugou says with an enchanting smirk gracing his sunlit mien.

"Ah. So it would be only the two of us, correct?" I ask while beginning to unconsciously scratch at the multiplicity of scars littering my left arm from beneath the sleeves of my uniform.

You believe Endeavor to be culpable for these scars. Although the minority were inflicted by him, his wounds were always along my shoulders—hidden away by most sleeves. If you knew the truth...would you hate me? Would you tell your parents? I don't want to mess up our friendship. I seem to be an expert when it comes to mutilating anything auspicious that happens to come my way. I sever the hands that reach for me. I shield myself behind my lies. I attempt to push them away, but they push back—excluding Bakugou, namely Yaoyorozu and Midoriya. This friendship is something that I never would have predicted, but something that I wouldn't trade for the world. This friendship is invaluable to me. This friendship is the reason why I'm sti—

Something warm firmly greets my arm; it transfixes my thoughts by the abruptness of reality crashing down on me as I flinch. "You with me?" utters a placating voice to the torrent of my raging thoughts.

Blinking, I flick my fingers across my arm with great haste. "Hm? Sorry. I was lost in thought. Did you say something that I missed?" His fingers intertwine with my hand that's currently scratching at my arm, causing an effervescent wave of warmth to wash across my being. "Ah?"

"You're scratching pretty damn hard." His slightly sticky digits seem almost hesitant to release their grasp on my hand. "Don't make them worse. That asshat has already f*cked up your body enough. Oi. They aren't bleeding now, are they?"

Scrutinizing my arms for any prominent splotches of red, I internally sigh in relief when my sleeves remain as a pure white. "Sorry..." I tip my head towards the ground. "What were you saying previously, though?"

"Don't avert your eyes from me, Shoto," Endeavor growled at me with a wry lour. "Look at me. LOOK AT ME, SHOTO!"

I detest holding eye contact with anyone with blue or turquoise eyes because of that—because of him. It reminds me of then... I always flinch. I always avert my eyes. I always blink. I can only maintain eye contact with Endeavor from considering the ramifications of his reprisal for my disgraceful disobedience.

My hand begins to lift to resume its work at swiping its nails along my arm, but I manage to halt its approach.

Bakugou places his hand at the back of his neck. "Don't apologize." He pauses for a brief moment. "Yeah, it's just the two of us. You're fine with that, right?"

Alone with Bakugou? I nod. "I wanted to ensure that there were no potential witnesses."

"You sound like you're planning a murder," he remarks with a certain exuberance to his words. "Would have to be on me, going by that logic."

"I should hope not," I reply, uncertain of how to respond.

I can't imagine myself being capable of it. I would sooner mutilate my skin from bottom to top than murder Bakugou. Even if I were to have Endeavor at point-blank, I don't believe I'd have the chutzpah to pull the trigger. If I did, I would be utterly repulsed, to say the bare minimum. Repulsed not solely by a corpse in front of me, but at myself for committing such an execrable crime.

He rolls his eyes. "Seriously."

"I assure you that I'm not."

He now facepalms. "Goddammit, I was joking. Take a joke. Tch. Guess that's hard when you don't express emotion like you're some kind of emotionless soldier." He glances over his shoulder to look at me.

"Sorry," I sigh dismissively.

"Worthless tears from a worthless thing have no place in this household. Every tear it sheds makes it weaker. Every smile it shows is just a delusion when it doesn't deserve happiness. Instead of taking its training seriously, it weeps on the floor. You're worthless."

Not enough... Worthless... Disappointment... I'm not enough. I'm worthless. I'm a disappointment. No. It's not enough. It's worthless. It's a disappointment.

"You should try smiling for once." He snorts lightly.

It kills me to smile when I know I'm simply lying to you and to anyone who might see. "I don't like smiling." I seldom endeavor such a feat, and when I do, I feel exceedingly guilty.

"You don't like smiling?"

"That is what I said. I don't intend to seem callous with my mannerisms, however. Smiling... It doesn't feel right."

It feels as though fell jaws clamp down on my heart whenever I smile. I must be incredibly weak for yielding to such a feeling for simply smiling. Although I might be ostracized for my uncharitable personality, I would prefer not to be lambasted for smiling.

"That smile is repulsive. No one could find such an abhorrent sight to be pleasant."

Once we stop at my house, I warily glance around the premises to affirm myself that Endeavor is truly gone. Afterwards, I pack a bag for the night and furtively stow away what provides me with a sweet reprieve from the hefty, crushing weight of reality.

Even if it's foolish, I would prefer this to potentially hurting the people around me. I'd much rather...direct how I feel at myself. How I feel is my decision. It is my choice to feel like this. That it is. I deserve to feel like this. Something worthless doesn't deserve happiness. Even though it hurts so much, I suppose this is a fitting punishment for how I'm simply a burden to others. You tell me I'm not a burden, but I can't help but feel like I am. You make it such an incredibly arduous task to lie to you. Your benevolence makes me feel so warm inside, yet it also kills me just as nicely.

My chest tightens, and as I clear my throat, I can taste the subtle taste of iron.

As we enter Bakugou's abode, I slip off my shoes beside him and glance at my familiar surroundings. The affable atmosphere of his house never ceases to fill me with a sense of safety.

"Hungry?" Bakugou questions.

"Not particularly," I answer as my eyes brush over an empty beer bottle perched on a table in the living room.

"Come here, you f*cking disappointment," Endeavor commanded me. Once I did as instructed, he pinned me up against the wall. "Don't move."

Sweat snaked down my forehead as I steeled myself for my forehead to bash into the wall. Instead, however, my back was perforated with jagged, thin teeth while my ears were bombarded with the sound of glass shattering. Bolting shut my jaw, I bit back the impulse to instinctively announce my injury.

"I said not to f*cking move!" Succeeding his fell vociferation was the rapid whirl of my body being thrust down onto the floor. "I'm not worth your time to listen to? Is that it, you waste of a f*cking life?" A baleful foot plummeted into my abdomen. "Ungrateful fat*ss. Had it not been for its Quirk, it long would have been disposed of. Could I not have been given a son with such an enviable Quirk?"

All I'm worth is for my Quirk. I am a thing of vanity. My Quirk is the only desirable thing in me. If I could transfer my Quirk to someone else, would you be happy? Would you finally feel happy? Without my Quirk, I wouldn't exist. All I am...

I grunted in agony as sporadic hisses of air were launched through my nostrils. A myriad of glass shards were biting into my backside, but I dared not move from my pregnable position.

My heart thumps perfervidly in my chest while I realize that I'm clawing at my arm again. Bakugou would never hurt me, right? I inwardly ask myself.

"Oi. What—" He notices the beer bottle on the table. "Oh, f*ck. Dammit, I didn't realize my mom left that out. You all right?" While he strides towards the living room, I shiver at the frigid spasm in my back.

I exhale deeply, and as I do, yet again can I feel something twitching in my chest. "Yeah. Sorry." I suppress the impetuous desire to cough.

While Bakugou disposes of the object conjuring up such deplorable memories of my past, he sighs, "Why are you apologizing? The hell could you have done? It's my fault. Tch. Don't expect to hear me say that very often. Regardless..." He tosses me a package containing dorayaki. "Eat that."

Gripping the package in my right hand, I tilt my head. "Ah. I—"

"I know. Shut up and eat it. If that bastard won't feed you, then I will." His own head turns away from me. "C'mon." He motions for me to follow him.

Situating ourselves in Bakugou's bewilderingly organized room, I sit at his desk while he plops down onto his bed. The slight sheen of white reflected from his beige desk momentarily catches my eye before Bakugou's voice captivates my attention.

"So, how've you felt today?" He always asks how my day has been when we walk home together.

How have I felt? Despite the fact that Endeavor has been unable to so much as lay a finger on me or utter any of his virulent words into my ears, I've only felt an increasing desire to do that. I have absolutely no reason to feel like this now. Without him here to chastise me, I only want to replicate that. I know how I feel, but I don't want you to concern yourself over me. I'm not worth your concern. I'm not...worth anything. My Quirk is what seemingly defines me. Without my Quirk, I would not exist. All I am...

I shrug. "Fine, I suppose." I lightly glide my nails across my arm.

"Sounds like bullsh*t to me. If you wanna vent about somethin' or just express your goddamn emotions for once, I'd be glad to hear it. Better than you bottling everything up 'till you explode...or implode." Implode... "I know you don't like talking about how you feel, and it's not like I can blame you, but it's good to get it off your chest. Makes you feel one helluva lot better sometimes."

I feel so guilty for lying. Why do you care about me so much? This I cannot fathom. What have I done for you other than being a thorn in your side? Even so, I enjoy this pleasant feeling whenever you offer me kindness. How selfish of me.

I nod subtly. "Thank you." Tell him the truth. "But... I don't know. Although I'm certain you're correct, I feel as though I'll regret it." With both hands free, I use my right hand to trace my forefinger along the waves of white slicked over Bakugou's desk.

Even if I were to tell you that my chest feels exceedingly heavy and that I feel so alone, would that truly change anything? Even if I told you the truth, what would you do then? I don't want you to know the truth.

I can feel his burning, phlegmatic gaze piercing through my being. "Don't feel obligated to tell me. But you look sad." When...was the last time I wasn't? "Just pointing that out."

"It...hurts, I suppose." A blistering, adhesive dust feels as though it's being dragged across my skin. "But I'm all right. Thank you, again, Bakugou." With a fragile, fleeting smile, I peer into his effulgent eyes of vermillion.

His eyes are stunning. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Charismatic.

He tosses back his head with his elbows leaned back behind him. "Only took you a year to admit that to me," he sighs. "Not sayin' that's a bad thing. Nah. It's a damn good thing. Now the question is how we send that pain to hell." The peripheries of his luscious lips raise up towards his cheeks.

You say that as though declaring war on a fictional being of supremacy, but I digress. I like that devious smirk of yours.

"I wouldn't know," I reply, sinking away into my dolor with a sigh. "I apologize if I've disappointed you."

"Didn't I just tell you it's a damn good thing you admitted that?"

"Sorry."

His fingers claw at the sheets of his bed. "You don't have to apologize for every single thing you do, dammit." He runs his hand through this hair.

So I am a disappointment. I should have known.

While the two of us are eating the dinner that Bakugou prepared, he remarks, "You look like a dainty rabbit or somethin' when you eat." I glance up to him, perplexed by his comparison. He seems almost vexed by his own statement. "It's cuz ya eat so damn slow."

Oh? Is that a compliment or an insinuation that was provided with elaboration? A rabbit, though? I would argue that Midoriya resembles one more closely.

"You fed me earlier. You're much too generous. I never would have expected this side of you, previously."

He presses his hand forwards with his fingers curled inwards, and although I assume he'll flip me off, he retracts his hand. "Tch. No. That piece of sh*t's just parlous self-centered, and on top of that, he's just an asshole in general." He clicks his tongue. "Just makin' sure you feel like you're getting enough. That's just common sense." His eyes drift towards the wall.

Then I must either lack common sense, or you're thinking quite heavily regarding some other topic. "You're very sweet." A constricting feeling coils around my chest as a vague heat disperses through my being and peppers my cheeks.

It's hard to breathe, but this warmth is almost rejuvenating. If only I could capture these feelings like events can through photos. These feelings give me something to hope for. Even when the pain is unbearable, these ethereal feelings attenuate them, even if to a virtually unnoticeable degree.

Bakugou's brows twitch in stupefaction. "Don't call me f*ckin' sweet. Tch. That's... I'm the ass, so you're sweet for entertaining that thought. Wait. sh*t. " His eyes stare down at the table, but if I'm not mistaken, a peachy hue has crept over his cheeks.

He called me sweet... "You aren't very articulate with words," I decide to tease him, inwardly supplicating for an augmented vividness of his cheeks stained with a light pink.

My desire becomes a refulgent reality. "f*ck off," he groans, curling his fingers into fists on the surface of the table.

My heart is pounding fervently. "You're always very dismissive whenever I compliment you." Continuing to poke at his ego, I find myself leaning forwards in my chair ever so slightly.

His lips pull back a bit, but not to the extent of his teeth being flashed. "Then don't f*cking compliment me! I don't hate it, so don't apologize, but... What the hell kind of game are you trying to play with me, you asshat?"

What a cute pouting face. "And you tell me that I'm a walking paradox. I thought that you were the ass, Bakugou."

"I am the ass, but you're gonna be beat meat on the street when I'm done with you!" He sharply springs up from his chair.

"I don't comprehend," I chuckle softly, retaining my phlegmatic profile.

With an expression warped horrifically by what I assume is ire, Bakugou slams a fist down onto the table. Hearing the bang causes me to flinch and lurch back my shoulders. "f*ck. Didn't mean to startle you. But if you think you can beat me, Katsuki Bakugou, in a game, you're damn wrong. I'm always gonna win."

"You lost to—"

"You lost to me. Damn Deku is a different story. Now hurry up and finish the cooking of the master around here so I can beat your ass at All Might Kart."

Challenging me to a duel at All Might Kart, Bakugou absolutely decimates my inept skills at the racing game. Although I've indubitably ameliorated my godawful skills to somewhere that I'd like to label as mediocre, I typically rank in fifth or sixth place.

"You suck at this," Bakugou snickers. "Y'know what I've noticed, though? You've never drifted before, have ya?"

Drift? Driftwood? Drifting off into thought? "Define 'drift.' Solely in relation to this game?" I place my controller aside.

"Not that kind of drift. Lemme show ya how it's done. Then we'll go again so you can get a feel for it. Trust me, it helps one helluva lot." Seeing his toothy grin feels as though an army of ants have infiltrated my lungs.

I nod. "All right. Ah. Give me a moment, please," I reply in a whisper while lifting myself from the floor and walking towards the bathroom.

Clumping together a few sheets of toilet paper, I cough into the wad of white, and as I do so, something pricks my throat. Examining the toilet paper contaminated with scarlet in my hands, I notice a minuscule speck of yellow. Furrowing my brows, I toss the soiled material into the toilet and flush it away.

What's wrong with me? I ask myself while washing my hands.

After a few hours, the two of us decide to settle down for sleep.

"Oi. Why don't you take my bed?" Bakugou suggests while rummaging through his closet.

Your bed is your bed. "I couldn't," I reply humbly. "I would feel bad."

As his arms stretch up towards the top shelf in his closet, he murmurs, "Well you're my guest, so you get the luxury of that. Unless you think my bed is—there it is—gross or something." Fumbling around through his belongings, he pulls free a sleeping bag and seizes it with his arms and hands.

"No. You're quite the immaculate person. I would simply prefer that you don't sleep on the floor of your own room."

He leans up against the frame of his closet. "So, what do we do at this impasse? What, you wanna sleep together?" He releases an amiable snort.

What an oddly appealing proposition. "If that is what you would like." His lips unevenly splay apart as his cheeks become dappled with the pink of cotton candy. "Did I say something wrong?"

He drags the palm of his hand in a gradual descent across his face, causing his skin to smudge downwards like taffy before returning into place. "Tch." He clears his throat. "I mean, I was kidding, but... You... Tch. Look. Do you want to?" He gently rubs the back of his neck with his hand.

He's stumbling over his words. "I'm all right with the idea. You seem skeptical, however." I can't take my eyes off of him.

"Nope. I'm fine. It's just...f*cking weird. It shouldn't be, but it is. I'll get over it. But if you start snoring, you're goin' over the edge and down to the floor." He thrusts the sleeping bag back into the depths of his closet after a few failed attempts. "Do you do anything weird in your sleep? Tch. You know what? I'll sleep nearest to the wall so I can push your ass off if I feel like it. Besides, I know you're an early riser. Who the hell's up at four or five in the morning on a school day? Christ..."

My thoughts keep me awake. "If that is what you would like." I bend down to my bag on the floor and extract my toothbrush, toothpaste, and a change of clothing from my uniform. "I apologize in advance if I do something worthy of having my ass shoved off the bed. I've likely changed since then, but when I was quite young, I would often sleep with Fuyumi. It seems that I would shake violently if blighted by a nightmare." Zipping the bag back up, I begin to itch at my arm again.

Refrain yourself, Shoto, I inwardly scold myself. Not now. Soon. Not now.

His hand traipses through his hair. "Good to know. Also, I don't sleep with a shirt on, but I can if you want me to."

Ah? "Hm. I don't believe you swore at all. In fact—"

"Goddammit, don't call me f*cking soft again."

"I think you are."

Seething silently, Bakugou remains silent for a moment. "Just answer the damn question."

So warm... Such a warm feeling. Even so, why is it that my heart continues to throb interminably? Why can't I stop thinking about that? Why can't I stop doing that? It hurts so much. But I can't do it. At least...not when I know how devastated he would be. He would never forgive me. He'd surely blame himself. But I want to. Every single day, I think about it. I want it. But he's always there with his hand extended out to me. It never reaches, but...

A gruff voice shatters my realm of thought. "Oi! Todoroki?" I hastily blink before providing him my attention and easing my fingers off of my arm. "Good God... You're seriously gonna hurt yourself if you scratch your arm like that all the damn time. Something you wanna talk about?" He offers a perfunctory sigh.

You did it again, Shoto. "N-No. My apologies, but it's a horrible habit of mine, if you haven't noticed. Ah. Whatever you are comfortable with. I don't mind." You should be ashamed of yourself, Shoto.

"You stuttered," he growls succinctly.

Damn. "Not now, thank you," I utter aridly. "Perhaps later."

Once we've readied ourselves for bed, a radiant, shirtless Bakugou first crawls to the far end of his bed and insinuates himself beneath the blanket. I await his cue for me to proceed, but no such signal arrives, leaving me to timorously stand at the edge of the bed for the next thirty seconds.

Bakugou finally groans in dismay. "C'mon. Don't just stand there all night, dammit. Don't be so damn shy." He repositions his head on his pillow to comfortably face me.

It isn't that I'm shy. "Thank you." I don't...want to be punished for acting out of line.

We linger in silence beneath the covers of his bed for another few minutes before Bakugou's voice softly caresses my ears. "Hey. Was today better or worse than you thought it was gonna be?"

His back faces me, but even so, I stretch my head through the dark to glance back at him. "It was all right. You were the highlight, as usual. I must thank you for your hospitality." I twirl my fingers around the loose fabric of the pillowcase my head rests on.

Your bed is quite comfortable. Your scent is infused into it—I like that scent. Your warmth is at my side. Your warmth flares up in my chest. Your warmth prevents me from glazing over with frost. I wish you knew how much you've done for me. I wish I could tell you that. But I can't.

As minutes gradually fall away through the hourglass of time to amount to hours, I can resist my impetuous craving no longer. Warily sliding towards the edge of the bed, I can feel my heart ticking like a feverish clock. Internally sighing, I abscond from the bed and creep towards my bag. With excruciating cognizance of the magnitude of the sound of my footsteps tapping along the ground, I frequently peer over my shoulder back at Bakugou. Once I've tortured myself with the abominable process of opening my bag and retrieving what I need from it, I surreptitiously slink off into the bathroom.

Fortunately for me, I recall that there's a rug in the bathroom, so I tiptoe across the floor until my toes are graced with the alleviating sensation of a soft material beneath them. Crouching down, I produce a small flame of orange from my left hand to mentally mark the whereabouts of the rug. Now gently folding the rug over itself, I slip it beneath the crack of the bathroom door and deftly trace my fingers around its peripheries to minimize any potential gaps for light to seep through. Once satisfied with my work, I flick on the light to see my reflection staring at me from the mirror.

Don't look at me. I wish that I could erase my pitiful reflection.

Yanking up the sleeves of my long-sleeved shirt, I spread apart my favorite pair of scissors. Relatively small, these scissors slice through skin like a knife through moderately warm butter. I stare down at the metallic sheen of the dual blades of chrome for a moment before placing the whetted edge of one blade to my left arm.

Regardless of how many scars I inflict on myself, it's never enough. I'm never surfeited with the delicious damage and drops of blood. He's so kind to me. He's so kind... That kindness only augments my desire to drag blades across my flesh. Why should I deserve to be happy when I'll simply eviscerate such an emotion? Even so, I'm so...so sick of this acute sadness that transfixes my chest. I'm sick of feeling so damn sad every day, but I don't want to be happy, either. I shouldn't be happy when all I am is a burden. I don't deserve it. I don't have the right to feel it. Even though he tethers me here, I still want to die all the same. Even though he's always within my reach, I feel so alone. Even though he staunches the blood flow of my physical wounds, my heart feels as though these scissors are only being wedged deeper inside; I can never seem to stop up the streams of tears pouring from my eyes, even when I'm smiling. If smiling is indicative of happiness, then why is it that, whenever I smile, my chest throbs, and my eyes well up with tears? If this is what happiness is, then why do we desiderate it when it's been lost? If this is happiness...then I don't want to be happy. If this is happiness, then it would be so much simpler to lie about the torture that is 'happiness.' If this is happiness, then...

Shaking my head, I realize now that trails of crystalline have swept across my cheeks and beadlets of vermillion have sprung up around the edges of the blade digging into my arm. Gripping the flat sides of the blade and nestling my fingers between the gap of the dual blades, I slash through my left forearm. A thin ravine of pale pink soon boils up with scarlet until thick orbs of red break through the surface and soon weld together to form a gleaming lake.

One more... I tell myself. One more. Just one more. One more. One more. One. Another. Just one. This is the last one. God... I-I can't stop. Regardless of my aggregation of scars, it's never enough. More... I want more. But it's just not enough to sate this voracious, unquenchable flame of self-destruction. One... One more.

Branding myself with one final scar never to properly heal or fade, I choke back the torrent of sobs threatening to spill from my throat while treating my self-inflicted lacerations with quaking hands. While the entropy of my indignant emotions perniciously gnaws at my chest like serrated teeth razing flesh, I'm unable to stifle a hoarse cough from escaping my lips. With vision impaired by the leaden weight of my tears, I question whether or not the extraordinarily small speck of yellow reminiscent of a seed is simply a figment of my imagination.

It hurts so much... The wounds scorch my nerves in pulsating waves. My throat feels as though it's swelling shut. My head throbs, and those throbs are aggravated with each sob. It feels as though daggers have pierced through my chest. Even my lungs burn from exhaustion. The tangible pain is painful indeed, but it is paltry in comparison to how I feel inside. I want to gouge through my eyes until not a single tear may slip through. I want to wrap my hands around my neck as though I'm not alone until my breaths finally cease. I want...to hurt myself until I'm numb to the pain.

As my spine slides down the wall after I've tended to my wounds, I curl my fingers into my shirt and flesh where my heart is. Gleaming rivers of diamond spill onto my pants and shirt, seeping down into the fabric and licking my flesh with a brief sensation of a cool dampness. Through my vision mired by my murky tears, I can see my trembling limbs.

"Are you going to cry again, you weak, poor excuse for a son? You have no reason to be sad. What hardships have you been through? The pain you've suffered doesn't mean anything! You don't know what real hardships are, you f*cking disgrace. If you think you know what pain is, try again. You don't know the first thing about pain and loss. Now, never show your face to me with tears in your eyes. Men. Don't. Cry. Get that into your head. I can imagine that it's empty, anyway."

All I can do...is cry. I cry and I cry, but more often than not, I don't understand why. I could have only auspicious events bestowed upon me, and yet I would still feel the same beneath the surface.

After perhaps another hour of watching my tears drip like raindrops, I manage to reform my flaccid composure. Although incredibly frail with the potential of abruptly shattering at any given moment, I hold fast the stolid persona I always assume in the presence of others.

Scouring the bathroom for any evidence that might still linger from my episode, I conclude that my efforts to obliterate my presence from the bathroom will suffice. Finally, I perish the light and return the rug to its natural positioning before returning to my bag. With heightened senses, I stash everything I'd hauled with me back into the familiar void of my belongings. After zipping up my bag one notch at a time, I stealthily slink back into the warmth of Bakugou's bed.

So warm... Not as warm as he makes me feel, but the warmth tickling my skin is rather relaxing. Hm. I wonder how soft his hair is. I would love to feel his hair gliding between my fingertips. When his fingers gently cradled mine, the balmy weather seemed to have surged through my entire being.

The tips of my fingers crawl along my arm, but the physical contact now launches a preponderance of needles to prick the surrounding area affected.

Damn, I internally berate myself. Worthless. I am worthless. I am worthless. I am worthless. I am worthless. I am worthless. My vanity must be the only thing he sees in me, and I cannot see him as culpable for that. I—

A warm, lean arc of mass ensconces my body into an embrace. Effervescent sparks of flame and stupefaction jolt through my body at the unexpected sensation. My hand cautiously prowls around until it gently scrapes the hand of the arm wrapped snug around my body.

When he held my hand...

My fingers deftly wedge into the warmth of Bakugou's hand; a thin film of sweat laces his skin. As my heart snaps like thunder, I finally interlace our hands. Simultaneously spiking my apprehension and melting my disconcerted state into repose, I lightly press our fingers and palms together. The mutual warmth and stickiness of our entwined hands is tapped at by the drum of my heart.

My cheeks feel warm. Strange.

Once both of us awaken in the blinding white light of the morning sun spilling in through the window of his room, we independently shower and change.

So as not to soil any of Bakugou's towels with my blood, I flash my Quirk of flame across my body to evaporate the water snaking down my skin. I instead utilize a towel to dry my hair.

It burns, I think to myself while applying new bandages to my wounds. It burns... The pain has been significantly mitigated compared to when the warm streams of water felt as though nails were being hammered into my veins, but the residual burning sensation is less than pleasant. I feel awful that my blood was washed across the floor of his shower, but I did scrub the floor as best I could. Blood... I coughed up more blood. There is most definitely something yellow I'm coughing up as well—which is absolutely repulsive to think about—but I'm utterly bemused.

Sighing, I dress myself and exit the bathroom with my arms occupied by my dirty clothing; these are used as a shield to conceal the medical supplies within the bundle of fabric. Entering Bakugou's room, I notice his absence and jam my belongings into my bag before strolling out to the main area of his house.

Sprinkling a dash of a white, grainy substance that I deduce is salt into a bowl, Bakugou rolls his chin over his shoulder to glance at me from where he stands in the kitchen. "Oi. Just in time. You sure took long enough." Scooping up the bowl into his hands from the sides, he whisks it over to the dining table. "It's katsudon."

Midoriya's favorite. "A shame that Midoriya isn't here," I comment while approaching the rectangular table. "Nonetheless, thank you, Bakugou. You did not have to do this." Pulling back a chair from the table, I sit myself down before readjusting the chair again.

Bakugou, whose back greets my eyes as he treads back into the kitchen, mutters, "Well, I wanted to. I used to make katsudon all the time for—with—the damn nerd. Tch." He returns to the table with his own bowl of katsudon in hand. "You gonna eat?" His eyes retain a relatively low angle directed at me.

I can't stop thinking about how I held your hand last night. Your warmth alone placated my raging emotions. When I held your hand...I felt something I've never felt before. I've no proper words to describe it, but I finally felt as though he was truly there at my side. I felt so warm. Warm... So warm.

The wailing of my arm as my nails scrape along its sheathed surface thrusts me back into the sea of reality. "Ah, yes. My apologies. You certainly seem to concern yourself over—"

He lowers his gaze further towards the table. "I always wondered why the f*ck you ate so much at lunch." You noticed? "Wish I'da known that that piece of sh*t was practically starving you. Look. I just..." As he pauses, a faint trace of red dusts his cheeks. "You shouldn't ever have to go through that again, dammit. You must've been so damn hungry. You had training at home and at U.A. You were a lot thinner then. I don't know how the hell I didn't make the connection." His fists clench.

"It wasn't your fault. I hope you know that."

"Course it wasn't my fault. But I could've done something about it," he grumbles as rancor emanates from his jagged words.

Bakugou... "Was it your duty to play detective and piece together what abstruse clues you could from my recondite profile? No. It's all right. I'm not worth the regret." Dammit.

Lifting his head from practically being parallel to his bowl of katsudon, his ruby eyes gleam with unfettered fury, yet he remains silent.

"Sorry..." I sigh while inwardly reviling my error.

"Don't apologize, dammit. Don't think about yourself like that, either. You... Tch. You're a great f*ckin' friend of mine. I'm not ashamed to say that." His forefinger brushes through his hair illuminated partially by the sunlight cascading through the nearby window.

My chest feels tight. "You consider me to be a friend? I'm honored." Then why...did my heart shudder at the mention of 'friend' if I'm so honored to have secured that position?

"No sh*t," he maunders. "Don't make me repeat myself. Tch. You're...important to me, all right? There." Massaging his temples, he sighs.

"You're also important to me," I reply with a forced smile that twists my stomach into knots. "Thank you for making me feel something..." You absolute fool. "Something as nice as friendship." Why does 'friendship' sound so rotten?

While I finally begin to eat the katsudon in front of me to partially veil my crestfallen expression, Bakugou wraps his fingers around a glass filled with a carbonated lake of brown. "You doin' all right?" he asks me, and to answer his question, I nod. "Can I get you something to drink?"

He seldom swears around the times he asks me if I'm all right, and overall...he's very sweet. "Ah. Milk, if it isn't too much trouble."

"Gotcha. No trouble at all. You want somethin', then don't be afraid to say it. If I'm able to, I'll probably give it to ya."

If I asked you to kill me, would you still do it? I could ask for no better way to die—by the hands of someone I've endowed my trust to. I feel oddly satisfied to think about that.

Bakugou now hands me a glass of milk, and I thank him for it. "You sure you're okay?" His keen stare of vermillion implores a truthful response to fall from my lips.

My fingers play at the sleeve of my left arm. "I'm fine, Bakugou." It hurts so much... "Thank you for asking." It feels like I'm falling apart.

"Todoroki, I want to believe you, but that sounds like some f*cking bullsh*t to me," he hisses.

"How so?"

With a lour, he mutters, "You look like you're always trying to hide a bullet wound. You look like that bullet was through your heart." His burning stare is resolute; it dares not falter.

Accurate. "How so?" I sigh nonchalantly while pressing my thumb into a flap of fabric from my sleeve.

Bakugou's trembling grasp on his glass threatens to shatter the vessel for liquid. "You never smile, and when you do, they always look so damn fake. Besides, how the hell can you be fine when Endeavor's put you through so much sh*t? You—"

"I said that I'm fine, Bakugou," I utter with words tinged by vexation. "It's nothing I can't endure. It hurts, but that is quite axiomatic, is it not? I can endure the glass in my arms and back." But...how long can I endure the glass in my heart? "The pain...gradually diminishes over time."

I can feel my tears welling up in my eyes again. Not now. Not now. Not now. Shoto, if you allow these tears to spill...

He lifts himself from his chair and winds around the table to confront me; his shadow towers over my sitting form. "f*cking hell... You don't sound okay. Please, just tell me what's wrong, dammit." I've never heard 'please' from you before. "Oi. Look at me."

"Look at me. LOOK AT ME, SHOTO!"

My eyes, which had initially been glued to the floor, immediately snap up to meet Bakugou's livid, yet poignant eyes.

"There! He left mental scars. Hey..."

A familiar, anathematizing warmth threatens to crawl along my cheeks. They're never enough. The scars are never enough. More... I deserve twice the scars as the tears I've shed.

"I-I'm fine..." I spit while averting my eyes from Bakugou.

"No, you're f*cking not! Todoroki, cut the bullsh*t!" His fingers clasp the front of my shirt, so I grip his wrist with my right hand. "I've been so damn lenient with you for this past year so you'd feel comfortable, but you need to tell me the truth now. Hear me?" He pulls my body towards himself by the front of my shirt.

Gently blinking back my tears, I remain recalcitrant. "I'd rather not say," I murmur under my breath.

"Great. Now I know I'm right. You are a walking paradox. Now, tell me the truth." His keen injunction leaves me outwardly unscathed.

Rivaling Bakugou's refractory nature, I reply with silence as I slink away into my deluge of thought. You're awfully persistent. Even though my lies are virtually transparent to you, I keep lying. I don't want you to know the truth. I don't want you to worry about me. I don't want you to know how I feel. I don't want you to know what I think. But would you hate me for omitting the truth more than knowing what the truth is?

Bakugou lightly tugs further at my shirt. "Todoroki. Goddammit... Reverse our positions. I don't care how damn reticent you are about yourself. How the hell do you think I've felt all this time? I've kept to myself about this too damn long. Todoroki, are you willing to open up and tell me?" His words are soft, yet eerily whetted.

I would feel so worthless and perturbed if Bakugou were to behave as I am now. Then what does he feel? Am I willing...to open up and tell him? I can't help but feel as though I'll regret it. Even so, a part of me wants to finally accept the hand he's offering. Yet I don't deserve his hand. Yet I'm sick of the guilt I feel from lying.

My lips part, but my words clump together in my throat. "I...don't know," I whisper, succumbing to dubiety. "I don't know." My grip on Bakugou's wrist loosens before completely falling away as my tears finally shatter the defenses I'd constructed to retain them. "I'm sorry, but I don't...know." My head droops down towards the ground in an endeavor to preclude Bakugou's cognizance of my tears.

"You dunno?" he whispers, although he seems to be spilling his thoughts aloud. "Then... 'Kay. There's nothing wrong with that. Then, putting it candidly, do you have, or do you think you might have depression?" His query feels as though it's asphyxiating my heart with a vice.

I still remember when Fuyumi utilized the day Endeavor was out of town to drive me to have my wounds treated. At the clinic, I was handed a clipboard with quite the interesting batch of questions. I never admitted the full truth, but I didn't deny the fact that I felt such excruciating sadness with each passing day. That day, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Since then...

Damp splotches mottle my jeans from the wetness of my tears. The fringe of my hair falls along my forehead, obscuring my watering eyes.

It's been at least seven years since then. I want to die more than ever. Every day, it hurts more and more. Even when the pain is ameliorated ever so slightly, it lasts only for a fleeting moment. I can't escape from this inextricable cycle. It's killing me, but I'm unable to wrestle myself free. I want to die so badly, but I wouldn't deign to force you through such abject torment. At least...for now.

A soft sob escapes my throat. "I'd prefer not to talk about it," I whimper, failing to ascertain my phlegmatic persona.

"Oi... Then I'm taking that as a yes." His barren growl softens into a brittle whisper. "Goddammit, I don't want you to be sad all the f*cking time. There's nothing to be ashamed of there, believe it or not. But you shouldn't have to feel like sh*t, Todoroki." His fingers clasping my shirt relax their hold. "You always look so damn lonely. Hey. Look, I'm not...the best kinda person with this crap, but do you want a... f*ck." What? "Do you want a hug? There. Christ. You better say yes from how damn difficult that was on my end. Tch. Don't get any funny ideas."

A...hug? I've never been offered such an endearing gesture before. I suppose he did state that I was an intimate friend. Friend... Why does this daft word cause such a brusque torpefying of my mind? Even so, if our entwined hands flushed my being with such tantalizing warmth, then...

So as not to saddle Bakugou with another abhorrent burden, I softly sigh, "Yes."

Promptly is the hand which once clutched my shirt sent to glide across my clavicle and wind around my torso. A firm pair of arms ensconce my body, and as I reciprocate the embrace, my breaths begin to hitch at a familiar set of memories replaying in my head from Endeavor. Despite Bakugou's consoling scent clinging to my clothes and his warmth coalescing with mine, I feel cold on the inside.

Why does it hurt? I should feel relieved. I should feel better. I should feel warm. Why does it hurt? Why does it hurt to be with you? Being without you hurts. Being with you hurts. Everything aches. Everything burns. Everything hurts. Hugging you... I feel so loved, and yet it feels as though there are blades puncturing my heart.

My tears seep into Bakugou's shirt like desolate raindrops seeping down into porous pockets of soil. Causing my chest to sporadically jut out and depress is my muffled gasps pricking the air like fickle whips of wind slashing through vegetation. Protesting like the growl of thunder is my hissing heart rapidly expanding and contracting.

Bakugou's sturdy hands massage my shoulders with solace lacing their ginger motions. Once this revelation strikes me like lightning, my body implores me to begin hacking up whatever it is within my chest that afflicts me so. I tense, repressing the precipitous urge as I release Bakugou from my grasp.

"Sorry..." is all I manage to mutter with a desiccated, hoarse voice before frantically stumbling towards the bathroom.

"Oi, you—"

Furtively grasping at my throat with my left hand, I raise my right hand to Bakugou and slip around the bend of the wall. Sliding into the bathroom, I swiftly lock the door behind me. Crumbling to my knees before the toilet as staticky breaths of mine prick the back of my throat, I start coughing with acute, gradational intensity.

No matter how much or how hard I cough...I can't reach it. I can feel it lurking in my lungs like a designing, pernicious predator. I detest this sensation and the fact that I know I'm unable to expel it.

Finishing up in the bathroom, I walk with heavy steps towards the kitchen and dining room area to find that Bakugou is standing at the edge of the table nearest my direction. "Sounded like you tried to inhale your own saliva in there," he remarks with the shake of his head. "Doing all right?"

You always ask me how I am, and I...always lie. "I'm fine. I—"

"Last time I checked, you clearly weren't fine." With the slight raise of his brow, he crosses his arms.

My pupils flick to the corners of my eyes. "I was having some difficulties breathing, as I'm certain you heard. I'm fine now, Bakugou." Dismissing my paltry thoughts, I meet Bakugou's imperial gaze of garnet.

So warm, yet so cold.

He pats the table and clicks his tongue. "I know damn well that you know that I know you were crying. I've never seen you cry before. If you need someone to cry into again, I'll be there, 'kay? I'm not some f*cking plush toy, but even I wouldn't be enough of a dick to shove your feelings aside like that. Look, I don't want you to implode. I know you're outwardly repressing some major self-loathing. I'm not blind anymore. Now... Tch. C'mere." Bending his digits as one and waggling then towards himself, he motions for me to draw myself closer to him, and I follow suit; our noses are mere centimeters apart.

His eyes are such a radiant red, I cogitate as our warm breaths transiently mingle. I adore those eyes. Adore? What would I define 'adore' as? Is it anomalous that I frequently exalt his resplendent eyes? Those eyes...should not be disgraced by my eyes. Why do you seem to be so drawn to my deplorable eyes? Ah. My eyes certainly do not reflect the same air as I exude. They must be quite the harrowing sight.

Bakugou's eyes falter from gazing into mine as he opens his mouth to speak. "Don't leave me in the dark if you're struggling with something," he drawls in a baritone whisper, necessitating my compliance with an affirming embrace. "I'd feel like sh*t if I knew that I could've been doing something more. I'd feel like sh*t to know I let you feel like sh*t. Obviously you aren't happy, but if you're feeling sad, then don't try and bottle that up. Don't even f*cking try to lie to me about that. If you're hurting, then tell me, dammit! Can you do that for me, Todoroki?" He reinforces his grip around me.

Bakugou, I can't...bring myself to do that. As it is, you are far too erudite regarding my personal affairs. Revoke the hand you've given me. Detach yourself from me so that we can share a mutual sense to further regress. Forget about me and keep your distance. All I can do is hurt you. All I am...

If I were to tell you I'm hurting, you would never hear the end. You would inquire as to what caused the pain. You would ask what kind of pain it is. You would ask how to cut away that pain. I have the answers at my disposal, but I wouldn't be capable of enduring the agony of telling you the truth. I caused the pain. The pain supplicates for me to die. This acute longing for death seems to be incurable.

Finally curling an arm around Bakugou, I exhale sharply. "I apologize, but I can guarantee nothing."

I was awake when I threw my arm over you last night. You were shaking. You were scratching at your arm again. You always scratch at your arm when you're anxious. You always scratch at your arm when you're uncomfortable. You always scratch at your arm when you're lying. I picked up on that after a week or two. Then I realized you'd always fiddle with your damn sleeve whenever I asked how you were doing or how your day was. You kept on lying, and I played dumb for over a year. Tch. You held my f*cking hand last night of your own volition. Thank f*ck I pretended to be asleep—I was blushing so damn much because my gay ass couldn't help it. But if you're gonna hold my damn hand, then I gotta top that. Yeah, maybe I do see this as a competition, but I can't help myself when you're the one asking for it. Besides...you're f*cking crying, Todoroki. Do you realize how damn hard it is for me to see you like this?

Obviously, something didn't sit right when I saw the hole in your damn arm, but I knew there was more going on under the surface after I got to know you. You'd sound so critical of yourself sometimes. At first, I liked that about you—you weren't afraid to admit your faults in battle. But you did it so damn frequently, and even if you were terse, those were sharp words. Then I started to hear your statements where you basically told me you were f*cking worthless and a waste of time and effort. Then I learned about that bastard's abuse. I want to f*cking beat his ass to death. Look at how damn hard it is for you to decide whether or not you want me to hug you. It's been at least a minute, Todoroki. Weird. I'm never the one initiating the hugs with Kiri. He's always the one clinging to me like a sloth.

Chapter 4: Fell Petals

Chapter Text

The sky is my ocean and the ocean is my sky, I cogitate while conjuring up the pictorial scene of an azure canvas splattered with swirls of a flaky white. If I dove to the bottom of the ocean, I'd find myself ascending through the clouds. If I endeavored to soar through the sky, I'd instead plummet to the depths of the ocean. It would be so simple to dive through the clouds...

Shaking my head, my thoughts are attenuated as I proceed with my typical routine of visiting the U.A. rooftop for an approximation of five minutes every school day at lunch. Upon nearing the propinquity of the ingress to the rooftop, however, Yaoyorozu's voice grasps at my attention.

"You seem to have a routine set up." I turn my head over my shoulder to see Yaoyorozu's jet-black ponytail. "Would you mind if I accompanied you this time around, Todoroki-kun?" A smile breaks through her neutral expression.

I nod. "The rooftop is not my property, and therefore I cannot stop you." Striding up the remaining stairs separating my fingers from the door to the rooftop, I internally sigh in relief when my fingers graze across the familiar metal door.

She chuckles a bit. "While it is true that I can walk to the rooftop of my own volition without repercussion during the appropriate times, it's a pleasure to be able to spend some time with you." As the sunlight tearing through the tranquil clouds sears the world beneath it, the two of us step into its refulgent rays of gold. "I guess I should stop beating around the bush. Anything new to report?"

Fortunately, there should be no new reports until he returns. "Fortunately not," I reply insouciantly. "He's currently in America. He won't be returning for another few weeks." Lowering myself to the ground, I press my back up against the wall and peer out into the vast lake of blue above.

Yaoyorozu dubiously raises a brow as consternation seizes her countenance. "It's wonderful that he will be unable to physically harm you again within that period of time, but might I ask why there are bandages around your left arm?" She tilts her head and glances at the arm in question.

Damn. You noticed? "Ah." My fingers glide across the bandaged lacerations that have yet to fully heal—although, they will never truly heal fully. "They're from the day he left," I lie.

"Oh. A-All right, then. Those must have been severe injuries..." The strength in her voice ebbs away. "Do you need any help—"

Out of perturbation, I impetuously interject, "No, I'm all right. Thank you for the offer." Thank you for lending me your hand that night. "I'm still in your debt."

"Now leave. Leave and fix that disrespectful, silent unresponsiveness. Get off the floor! Weak. It seems to need additional training. You dare disrespect me? Get. Up. PICK YOURSELF UP, YOU WASTE OF A LIFE! I don't have time for its insolent indignance. Unwanted and foolish. You should fix the sh*t you've burdened everyone around you with by f*cking dying. Do you see how f*cking worthless you are? You've always been worthless. Your efforts amount to nothing. It's sickening. Get up. "

I can't see properly. My vision grows only hazier. Even if I deserve to be beaten and broken, this only hinders my performance. It hurts, but I can endure the pain. I can endure the pain, but I can't comprehend how this abuse contributes to priming me for what you want me to be. Even so... Even so, perhaps you are right. You do not wish for me to be alive. I am quite the fool. I want to die, but I also want to save...

Unable to muster up the strength to stand, I found myself struggling to breathe as a rough pair of hands lifted me by the neck. "Trash doesn't belong in my household," he sibilated malevolently in a growl before tossing me out the door as if I truly had been nothing more than a rancid, slimy bag of trash. "You will never be a f*cking Hero with how weak and ignorant you are." Spitting at me, a warm, viscous glob of saliva slowly crept down my sleeve.

She nods in a state of discomfiture as I rise to my feet. "Todoroki-kun?" I glance down at her while she straightens out her legs to stand. "You don't..." Her solace-filled eyes gaze at my arm again. "Never mind. I apologize for that. Please excuse my uncertainty." She gently bows her head.

The door slammed shut, leaving a reverberating echo to chime.

Get up, I commanded myself. Trash shouldn't linger on the premises of his house. Get up, Shoto. You'll wake up as a disappointment all the same, so collapsing will solve nothing. You deserve to die, but if you are to dispose of yourself, you would do well to do it properly—where no one must see your disgraceful body.

Impossible. "No need for apologies, Yaoyorozu."

Panting, I attempted to ignore the hunger which fatigued my body while ambling down the street. I resisted the inexplicable jolts of impulse I had to move my arms so as not to disturb the preponderance of glass shards jutting from my shoulders. Dolorous and delirious, I'd been incapacitated by both physical and mental blades gradually sinking into my body and mind.

While the two of us sit in an amicable silence at the U.A. rooftop together, I notice that Yaoyorozu frequently glances at my arm. Her scrupulous eyes seem to search for either evidence or answers.

"Is there something on my sleeve?" I ask, retaining my neutral sobriety.

I plodded forth to a park bench and sat down beneath the faint filaments of white that illuminated the sky. Suppressing the urge to cry from the tears welling up in my eyes, I began to pluck the individual glass shards from my shoulders.

I feel so alone. I feel so cold. Sometimes...I truly do wish that I could feel loved. Even though Fuyumi sends me a letter every week and reminds me that she loves me, the words she directs at me...never feel real. When I visit Mom, her love feels genuine, but it never seeps into me. No. It simply seems to be repelled. Then, when I remember them, I do not feel loved. Rather, it feels as though those words pierce my chest. If that is what love feels like...

She shakes her head. "No. S-Sorry about that. I don't think I'd ever seen you in such a debilitated state." Once again, her eyes flick to my arm. "Knowing that you have to suffer through that is truly heart-wrenching, Todoroki-kun. I still strongly believe that we should inform Aizawa of this. The fact that he abuses you isn't okay. Even if it's respective to the times he's drunk, that doesn't change the fact that it's abuse." She sighs softly.

After roughly fifteen minutes, a familiar figure approached from the darkness of the night. "Todoroki-kun?" asked Yaoyorozu. "Is that you? What—" She choked back her initial sentence as I gingerly tore a large shard of glass from my shoulder and tossed it into a dish of ice I created by melting a protrusion of ice into a depression of it. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," I sighed aridly.

I can feel it rearing its head in my chest again. Clearing my throat as the taste of iron settles on my tongue, I murmur, "I appreciate the thought. However, I will decline that implicated offer." Is there something in my mouth? "Nonetheless, I'll be returning to lunch. I'm hungry."

"Y-You certainly don't look fine to me. Can I ask what happened? Is that...glass?"

I didn't dare to meet her eyes. "You already asked. Yes, it is glass. I ask to be left alone."

"I'm going to help you, not leave you." A flashlight and two batteries were produced from the palms of her hands. "Can you walk?" I nodded.

While eating the soba I always purchase for lunch, something tangible—something thin and small—flutters through my throat. Arriving at the revelation that the tangle of matter that's been constricting my lungs might finally have loosened to the point of unraveling, I excuse myself from the table. Bakugou presents the query of why I'm leaving, so I retrieve my phone while claiming to be using the restroom; I text him that if I don't return within the next three minutes to then be concerned.

After being coerced into receiving aid from Yaoyorozu at her mansion after refusing to be taken to a professional, the two of us walked beneath the faint feathers of the moonlight dusting the shadowy air. The entropy of my gait and movements made it seem as though I'd been drinking, and only adding fuel to the fire was the fact that I'd been at home all day and the odor of alcohol had infused with my clothing.

Promptly plodding towards a single-unit bathroom, I hastily lock myself inside and begin to cough into the toilet. Sharp jabs of pain whisk through my chest while thin, disc-like things adhere to my throat like strands of hair. A jittering burst of air and blood agitate the thing—the wretched feather duster of vexation—shifting in my lungs.

It feels as though I can reach it, I cerebrate as I steel myself for a forceful cough to shake my being. I can never cough it up. What on earth has attached itself to my lungs? Finally, I find myself hacking up blood and small yellow discs. What? Another few discs of yellow at last free themselves from my chest and are practically retched up into the toilet.

After I'd nearly faltered to my knees from the delirious haze that razed my mind and body from overexerting myself during training, I could feel my stomach whining. Yaoyorozu inquired as to whether or not I was drunk, so I replied that I was not, and to validate my answer, that she could ask me any questions she would like for me to answer.

Panting heavily while my throat burns furiously, I scrunch my eyes closed when I realize that the thin discs that clung to my throat are merely constituents of the thing irritating my lungs. Exhaling sharply, my enervated state of mind is somewhat amended when nothing implores me to hack it up. Now sighing, I scrutinize the yellow discs stained with blood that were ejected from my body.

They seem like...petals of a flower. Is such a phenomenon possible? Perhaps I'm simply delusional. They have been flushed from my chest, however, so they shouldn't return. What a relief. Even so, there is still something occupying my lungs. But what?

"What's five hundred and fifty plus six hundred and seventy-five?" Yaoyorozu asked as her first question.

"Ah. Fifty and seventy-five... One hundred and twenty-five... One thousand and one hundred... One thousand, two hundred and twenty-five. Yes. That should be correct."

She smiled. "Correct! Next question... Who caused your injury?" Her mien, dampened by the darkness, sunk into a stern, yet consoling expression.

Self-culpability would imply self-harm. I wouldn't deign to pin the blame on my siblings. An accident? What accident would be feasible? I can't think straight with this capricious mind of mine. Besides, she specifically asked 'who' and not how the injury was caused or what caused it.

"Someone I know. That's all I will say. Sorry." Glancing to the pavement beneath our feet, I lightly scratched at my left arm.

With deterred movements, she grasped her right arm gently with her left. "Someone you know? A family member or a friend?"

There are times that I wish he was not my father. "A family member," I uttered beneath my begrudging breath. "I'm all right, Yaoyorozu."

"You nearly collapsed," she countered with harrowed words. "You're shaking..."

I haven't eaten for the past week. His hands had grasped my waist. I felt so excruciatingly uncomfortable and disconcerted. He told me he would beat me again and again until I became inert if he found out that I had been eating. I know he likely forgot about such a crass statement once he was sober, but even so, I'm terrified. Even if I'm used to the pain, nothing can prepare me for any unorthodox methods he might have. Still... The way he stared at me when his hands were wrapped around my waist absolutely appalled me.

Recalling the night when Endeavor held fast my body, I find myself unable to finish the soba in front of me.

"Oi." Bakugou's terse response to the fact that I've stopped eating speaks a lengthy paragraph to my mind.

I feel sick thinking about that. "I don't feel well," I candidly remark without a vestige of emotion lingering on my mien.

Leaning towards me, Bakugou's shoulder lightly presses into mine in the process. "You said you were struggling to breathe last week, you've been leaving at lunch more often, and now you're not eating. When you said you were having trouble breathing, I thought maybe you were asthmatic or something. That's probably not the case. If you're sick, then why the hell wouldn't you tell me?" His warm, astringent breaths running across my neck flood my being with a shivering warmth again.

You would be correct. "I don't know if I am," I sigh. "I didn't want to bother you."

"You're never a damn bother to me," he hisses comfortingly. "We're talking about this later." His fingers which press into the bench we're sitting on brush against my thigh fortuitously, and although I anticipate to sink further into a comfortable warmth, I'm instead struck with a rotten wave of revulsion.

Sick... I stare down at my hands. I certainly am sick...of living with these abject thoughts savaging my mind, the vacillation scrambling my thoughts into inextricable conglomerates, and how much it simply hurts to keep living. Perhaps I should have simply liquidated these oppressive thoughts by ridding myself from the world prior to entering U.A. I would feel beyond execrable to perform such an anathematizing action now. I tried...but I had capitulated to a torrent of my thoughts. I could think only of myself and what I wanted and why. When he texted me...I realized.

Once class for the day has met its end, I rise from my desk to approach Bakugou. While walking in his direction, however, Yaoyorozu first approaches me and requests to speak with me alone. Much to my chagrin, I nod and glance over at Bakugou to see him cracking a smile at Kirishima.

Such a charismatic smile... You seem so genuinely happy around him. Then why do you devote so much of your time to me? Your staunch efforts are uplifting, but I cannot seem to comprehend your rationale in the slightest.

Now relatively alone with Yaoyorozu outside the U.A. building, she sighs lightly before parting her lips to speak. "I'm sure you're wondering how I noticed," she chuckles sheepishly, yet somewhat timorously. "During our training a few days ago when you and I were paired with Uraraka, I noticed the bandages while you were descending after Uraraka used her Quirk on you. When you were preparing to strike Iida with your ice attack, your left arm followed the same movement. The two of us were looking only at you to finish the match, so..." She bites her lip. "My apologies for expatiating all that. I just...didn't want you to get the wrong idea."

"I see. That makes sense." I place my hand on the wall beside me. "You seem very concerned about this matter. You were saying something earlier. What was it?" My gaze remains unwavering.

"Oh. That." She tucks a loose strand of her charcoal hair behind her ear. "But I am very concerned. As long as you are comfortable with it, may I see your arm again?" I nod, partially rolling up my sleeve to reveal white bandages that have been wrapped over gauze pads. "The wounds must have been deep. Considering the fact that you're still using this kind of bandaging, there must have been more wounds after I realized your arm was bandaged." Dammit, she's more observant than I anticipated. "If Endeavor hasn't been here, then...are these self-inflicted?" She looks as though she's been struck with a hefty punch after finishing her final sentence.

Why do I suddenly feel as though I've swallowed a blade? "Ah." Unconsciously tugging gently at the fabric of my left sleeve, I fail to fire a lie in a reasonable frame of time, so I instead bargain for more time and sink deeper into my mental web of discord. "I understand now. Do you find that I seem like the type to do so?" Appearing as unfazed to her query, I maintain a blasé mien and posture.

Training would not work. I refuse to pin the blame on others. An animal? A pet? No. Bakugou could easily refute that. Animals. Outside. The wilderness? Training...outside? No. She would ask to see if I am bandaged anywhere else. My Quirk? Experimentation with my Quirks? Ah. Wounds that opened up again?

She eyes my arm from the corner of her eye. "I'm terribly sorry if I sounded like I was making an accusation—that wasn't my intention in the slightest. That was my first conclusion." Her fingers curl a small strand of her hair around it like the grooves in a screw.

I must seem like the type if that was your first conclusion. "I see. My old wounds reopened while I was training," I murmur.

"And so you still need this kind of bandaging from their reopening that was three days ago at its earliest?" She crosses her arms, but her expression is laced with solicitude. "Todoroki-kun...I-I think you're lying. As much as I'd like to believe that you're telling the truth, the evidence I've gathered strongly opposes that."

I have...no rebuttal. Spewing puerile lies would be futile. Damn. Bakugou is already aware that I have depression. He does not need to discover that I frequently cut. Yaoyorozu knows now. She also knows of the abuse I receive at home. Why...do they care? Why did I allow them to befriend me like this? Perhaps I should simply push them away. Is it too late for that?

"I should be going," I state dismissively while pushing myself off of the wall to walk off. A hand grasps mine, and although the hand itself is warm, the internal deluge of warmth I feel with Bakugou does not arrive. "Yaoyorozu. Please..."

She shakes her head. "Todoroki-kun, I can't allow you to walk off after that. Was Endeavor the one to make you feel like you should do this to yourself?" I can sense the apprehension dripping from her unvarnished words.

"There is no one but myself to blame," I remark with grim austerity. "Sorry. I need to go. I can't...talk about this right now." Perceptive to my crumbling emotional state, Yaoyorozu releases my hand. "Thank you." As I depart, I blink back the tears in my eyes with haste.

Men...don't cry, Shoto. Steel yourself. Accept it. Take the hit. Endure the blow. I've no right to feel this way. My feelings don't matter—they are negligible things to be disposed of. Even so, it hurts. I want to cry. I want to give in. But I shouldn't. I won't. I can't. I shouldn't feel the agony that I do inside. I won't cry with witnesses. I can't give in with him here for me.

"Took ya long enough," Bakugou greets me as I round the corner of the side of the building. "The hell did Ponytail want with you?" The magnitude of his voice seems to have been attenuated.

I still enjoyed it when she held my hand. "Not much. A bit about our group performance a few days ago." It feels so comforting to know that the people I see are truly there, but I felt different when I held Bakugou's hand.

"Sounds boring. 'Side from that sh*t, how was today?"

My chest feels tight again. Just what is it that afflicts it so? Its adverse effects seem only to be exacerbated as time progresses. Did I truly cough up flower petals? That would implicate the development of a flower in my lungs. What a farcical thought. It simply sounds like an idea for fictional stories—not a sufficient answer for my disc-shaped quandary of yellow.

As I clear my throat, I swallow down more blood. "It was all right. Thank you for asking." I pause. "Why do you ask me this every day? My answer is relatively the same each time."

"What? Do you not like me asking?"

"Curiosity."

He shrugs. "I don't know. No real reason. I just do."

Is that truly the case? You must certainly be cognizant that I'm lying every single time. Then, why? Why do you ask me these daily questions if you know the truth? Are you waiting for the day I'm unable to deceive you with how I feel?

"I see." My fingers graze my sleeve.

"You seem uncomfortable. Really, though. I'm not gonna be mad or annoyed if you just tell me what's on your mind. Doesn't matter what it's about. I'll listen, 'kay?"

Perhaps only fragments of the truth will suffice. "Thanks. A few years ago, Endeavor...held me with lust in his eyes. I knew what he was going to do. 'The only reason someone would f*ck trash as worthless as you would be to beat you from the inside.' I ran—I knew what he wanted." Shivering at the thought of Endeavor's flagrant sexual harassment, I pry my fingers from furiously itching at my arm.

Visibly astonished and utterly irate, Bakugou snarls, "Well I'd certainly f*ck—" He pauses briefly. "Tch. I'd just f*ck him up with my bare hands. Good God... He beats you, practically starves you, and now you're telling me he was this close to... You wouldn't believe how damn much I have to restrain myself not to use my Quirk to get to America and hunt his filthy ass down myself."

"It isn't his fault."

"The f*ck do you mean?!"

"He took a few drinks of alcohol and...and he was never the same." I wince as my nails glide across my wounds. "He wasn't like this. He wasn't. I can't forgive the choices he's made, and I will never forget what he's done, but I still would never wish to see him dead." I shake my head.

I am worthless for being unable to adequately aid him. I let him turn into who he is. It's my fault. I could have precluded such a fell sequence of events succeeding that night. I still remember...when he proceeded to grab another glass of it. And another. I should have said something. I should have stopped him. I waited. All because I waited...

Ensnared by my inextricable thoughts, I return to reality light-headed with a dirty film glazing my vision. I realize now that I'm unable to breathe. Grasping for my throat, I swiftly stumble towards a nearby section of land with a few trees and bush-like plants growing for scenery purposes. Keeling over beside a somewhat dense portion of the greenery, my chest heaves as bullets of petals are fired from my lungs and out of my mouth. Although there aren't a plethora of petals as I anticipated upon glancing at the yellow mass ejected from my body, a clump of them slicked over with blood spills down into the bushes. The fleeting sight of such fell petals of yellow dappled in red poses the question of whether or not I truly am delusional. Even so, I still continue to cough up small splatters of scarlet.

Footsteps hammer against the ground as a gruff voice reaffirms me by uttering, "I'm right here for you." A husky arm is wrapped around my waist, and although feeling his presence clinging to my body is a placating sensation, my emerging memories are an incendiary assailant to the gesture.

While my knees begin to buckle beneath me, I wriggle around in Bakugou's grasp. Sinking down to my knees, my fit of coughing gradually diminishes as Bakugou supports my body from smashing my legs against the pavement. With intermittent, quivering breaths, I gradually assuage my light-headedness and hapless nausea as my breathing regains stability. All the while, a stolid Bakugou rhythmically caresses my shoulders.

More petals, more blood, more coughing, I think to myself once my mind is freed from its sweltering insanity. It would be so simple to obviate this irksome issue if...

"Can you breathe now?" Bakugou questions, splintering my thoughts. I nod slowly, pulling myself up to my feet. "Good. Tch. Didn't mean to startle you when I grabbed you. I just...didn't want you to get hurt. I probably made it worse by doing that, but I know for the future now. Now, what the hell is wrong with you? Oi. You're scratching your arm again."

Although initially unsteady on my feet, I expeditiously recover my equilibrium. "You meant well. I appreciate the thought. I was unprepared, and I panicked. Endeavor...put his hands around my waist." Covertly biting my lower lip, I flinch at the memories pummeling my defenses.

Bakugou bares his teeth. "f*ck. No wonder you took seven centuries to tell me whether or not you wanted a hug. Sorry—I didn't mean to remind you of that. Goddammit..." He punches the nearby tree.

"It's my fault that I didn't voice that," I mutter. "Regardless, I'll be heading home. I need some time alone." I need...to do that again. "Thanks for your aid."

"If you're gonna go shut yourself in your room and cry, I'm gonna feel like sh*t." He clenches his fists and loosens them up a few times. "Sure there's nothing I can do? Even if it's a pain in my ass, I'd prefer that so damn much over knowing I could've done something. Oi. Why do you prefer being at home over your dorm since that asshat isn't around?"

"Habit. I forgot."

"For the past few days?"

"Yes. Flaccid, I'm sure," I sigh.

He abruptly brings his movements to a halt. "While you've been at home, how in the living hell have you been eating? I didn't even f*cking think about that. You're right. It is a habit." He insinuates his hands into his pockets.

Although I could have simply walked to the convenience store, I was not in the right state of mind to speak with anyone. I couldn't restrain myself. I kept cutting deeper. Pressing a blade to my skin is such an extraordinary feeling. All the things I could have done differently...are worthy of engraving another scar on my skin. Still. I've wanted to eat, but I did not intend to burden you again. Even when you constantly reiterate that I am not a burden, it still—

"Give your damn arm a break." Imperial ruby eyes meet mine. "I take this that you haven't been. Todoroki, for f*ck's sake. Tch. Guess you don't trust me enough for that." He sighs through his nostrils. "Don't do this to yourself, dammit. Don't treat yourself like sh*t. If you're not gonna ask me, then I'll ask you, 'kay? Seriously. If you need anything, then man up and tell me. Tch. Damn Kiri for rubbing off on me." He rests his hand at the back of his neck.

'Kiri,' I see. You truly are so very happy with him. "Even if I'm hungry, there are times I don't feel like eating. I don't know why." Despite the superficial appeal it brings, I've realized that it's become rather tiresome to eat.

As we approach my abode, Bakugou solemnly remarks, "I think you do know why. Your face says it all." Once I turn to enter the haunting halls of my home, he says the same affirming line he always bids me adieu with. "See you tomorrow, Todoroki." Soft as ever, his melodic words warm my gelid being.

Hearing you say that...makes me want to see another day to be with you. Those words feel like a promise of relief around the bend. A break. A moment. Even a minute...to escape from my thoughts. From how I feel inside. From...myself.

- Week 3 -

Awakening in my futon with a jolt, the muscles in my neck shift about as I fail to exhale without my throat giving a lunge forwards from a repressed cough. Holding my breath and resisting the itch clawing at my throat, I fly with drunken movements towards my bathroom. Before I realize it, more yellow discs mottled with crimson leap from my mouth as I retch them up.

The same writhing twinge like a vice of vines bites down on my chest, squeezing it tight and shortening my breaths. Jostling for an exit, the clumps of petals agonizingly tickling my lungs as they flutter about are soon hacked out of my system, but this does not mitigate the predominant tightness of my chest. Huffing breathlessly, I clear my throat from the detestable dance of the odious petals waltzing through what feels like an encapsulation of my being in a wildfire of flowers.

I wish that I could claw into my chest and manually remove whatever it is that produces petals—so, likely a plant of some sort—from my body. With every breath, I can feel it moving inside of me. I can feel the weight in my lungs. With this abomination inside me, I have less room for oxygen. If only it were as simple as the proper utilization of my Quirk to decimate this vile thing that I've no true name for.

Gradually regaining my composure, I flush away the aggregation of blood and petals that had seized my ability to breathe. I shakily rise to my feet, pressing my palm into the adjacent wall to support myself and to preclude from yielding to my vertigo. Now habitually weaving my fingers frothing with soap between each other beneath a cool jet of water at the sink, I stare into the mirror on the wall behind it.

Bakugou would tell me I look as though I've 'crawled out of a f*cking grave, so get some decent sleep, dammit.' How can I sleep decently with these anathematizing thoughts of mine decimating my awareness? What a repulsive creature. I'd think that anyone would deprecate such a horrendous sight, and yet they seem only drawn to it. Why?

I pry my eyes from the mirror to see my hand gripping fast the fabric of my sleeve. The desire to cut again is unbearable. So much... So many... So addictive... Not yet. Not yet. I mustn't be so hasty when I scratch my arm so often. One... No. Bakugou will grow only dubious of the excessive caution I heed with my arm. He would also notice the bandages. He would instantly conclude self-harm if he saw the bandages. He's asked if I've thought about it before. I haven't simply thought of it... Ah. It would be so easy... He would be disappointed in me. So would she. I deserve it. Ah...

Gripping the edge of the sink in the midst of my inner turmoil, I tell myself to wait another week to allow my recent cuts to somewhat heal. To alleviate the tantalizing desire to perform an unwarranted session of blade on skin again, I send Bakugou a text at four in the morning after half an hour of staring at the button to send it.

Me: Are you awake?

Waiting in trepidation for roughly thirty seconds, those seconds feel like minutes in the dour darkness of the night. Once I'm given the animated signal that he's typing, my heart sighs in relief.

Bakugou: Like I said...who the hell gets up at this hour? You seldom text me. No less at four in the mourning. Something happen? You okay?

Me: I couldn't sleep. Sorry to disturb you. I'm fine. I wanted to talk about something.

Bakugou: I'm calling you, then. I don't need my fingers to have a seizure.

Me: I didn't know fingers could have seizures.

As my phone vibrates, I pick up Bakugou's call.

"Hey. What'd you wanna talk about?" Bakugou's groggy, soft whisper soothes my ears from my phone.

He would wake up at this atrocious hour simply to talk to me knowing that it would be by my request... "Endeavor—"

"Is who I will beat the ever-loving sh*t out of," Bakugou fulminates, interjecting my words.

"Bakugou."

He clicks his tongue. "I kid you not—that sack of sh*t is dead meat when I see him next. He doesn't get to treat you like this anymore. Hear me?" I can practically visualize his current expression twisted awry.

He should treat me like this, even if I hate it. Even if it hurts. Even if it makes me want to die. I can never restore the person he was. I can never pay for all the alcohol he's purchased. I can never fully reconcile with him or amend the damages. All because I never said anything. I waited...until I saw its effects on him. This is my fault. Yet I run. I flee. I try to escape from it all.

I press my left hand across the burn mark around my left eye. "We went over this. He is not the one at fault—I am."

"f*cking hell. You aren't responsible for his sh*tty choices! Even if he's drunk, who's the one who knew full well the damn consequences and partook in it regardless? Him. "

Stop... "It was a party. After his first drink, he was fine. The ones after that... I saw him take them. I didn't stop him. And so began his addiction." You would do well to stay your conjecture-based accusations. "This is impertinent. Bakugou, Endeavor is returning in two weeks." With a sigh, I wince at the thought of the silence of my household being shattered by glass.

Bakugou reacts with a disgruntled snort. "I'm gonna be with you when that jackass busts through the door. If he wants to touch you, he's gonna have to get through Katsuki Bakugou. I'm done with his bullsh*t."

I'd highly suggest thinking rationally about this matter. "Does that justify violence?" I ask. "Is that what a Hero would do?"

He remains silent for a moment. "What f*ckin' 'Hero' beats the sh*t out of his son?"

Touché. "We can be the 'Heroes' here...I'd like to think. Give him a chance."

Perhaps my proposition sounds like suicide, but I refuse to believe that he cannot change. Deleterious and degrading might his words and actions be, and I shan't entertain the thought of dismissing or forgetting the absolute hell I've been through, but he never asked for an addiction. Tell me that this outcome was ineluctable. Be it so. But I could have stopped him. Even if I wish not to identify with any ties to him...

"He f*cks up this final straw and I'll personally dig his grave by repeatedly beating his ass into the ground," Bakugou growls with his sonorous voice. "I'm not letting him hurt you. I'd never forgive myself if I let him break you. He's already done enough damage, dammit. Don't even try to deny that you feel like sh*t every day. He's the predominant factor impeding your damn happiness."

If I am the one perpetually falling through a void of inimical despair, then it is my fault for allowing myself to feel and react this way. "Connecting the ends, you get a circle. It circles back to me." My grip on my phone tightens.

"If that had never been born, my life would have been so much better. But you f*cked it all up, you pathetic, whining pile of trash. No one would miss a f*ck-up as lowly and disgusting as you. "

I want to escape from this. 'Don't use a permanent solution to solve a temporary problem.' This 'solution' is an inexorable fact that will eventually fall upon us all. Some simply suffer. They continue to suffer. They suffer until the end. Death is what severs the agony. Animals are euthanized to cease their suffering. So, why...

A warm, calloused pair of hands crept around my waist.

No more.

Forced into a hot, steamy embrace, I tensed at the sensation of my head being pressed into Endeavor's chest.

No more!

Practically straddling Endeavor's thigh as he held me fast, I swiftly succumbed to the discomfiture seeping into my mind.

Enough...

Swallowing apprehensively, I glanced up to see two lascivious eyes of turquoise enthralled by my body.

Stop. Make it stop.

Indubitably repulsed to my core by the murky lust in those familiar spheres, I shuffled backwards. A filthy, grimy, crusty smirk impaled my chest with terror and absolute perturbation as I continued to squirm away. The large hands cradling my waist restricted the distance of the efforts from my wriggling, thus augmenting the rapidness of my pulsing blood and pleading breaths.

No.

Those bestial eyes of a beguiling blue traced from reflecting my own eyes to staring down between my legs. The appalling pink of his tongue wedged itself between his cracked lips like the hissing, forked tongue of a snake. His dry, hairy hands crept around the hem of my jeans like lynxes stalking their prey as a blade of air sliced through my heart, chilling my being with tremors. Those eyes practically drooled at their target tucked beneath the seams of my clothing, yet it was simple enough to foretell that the only tears that would be shed were from my own eyes.

Calm down. Expel the memories. Stop.

"...there?" softly rings Bakugou's voice in my ears. "Oi?"

My frigid breaths scraping against my throat felt as though the wriggling tendrils were snaking across my skin like frozen cobwebs. The livid snapping of my heart caused even my head to pulsate; throbs of pain would shoot across my forehead and the top of my skull. Even if I made an attempt to scream, my voice had long evanesced. My slurred vision seemed as though splotches of glitter had been spread across it as a thick, translucent haze dusted its peripheries and swirled each time my heart beat.

One hand tugged at the hem of my jeans from beneath my shirt while the other abruptly rested atop the double layer of fabric separating Endeavor's groping fingers from what he desperately desired to retrieve. I could feel his grimy fingers with slightly yellowed, thick fingernails curling around me. The icy eyes saturated with a fervent salacity that I wished I could burn the image of simply stared down where his hand began to stroke above. His fingers wrapped into the fabric of my pants.

I don't want this, I frantically thought to myself. Please don't touch me. Stop. I don't feel well. I stifle a gasp as he strokes his thumb along the inevitable, slight protrusion from my pants. I'm not comfortable with this. I don't like this. I have to get away. Even if he beats me again, no amount of pain could possibly compare to this. I'm terrified. Please don't...

Glancing between the hand gradually sliding down the side of my jeans, the hand now cupped between my legs, and the oily, dazed face and eyes of Endeavor, I could feel a sharp heat boiling within me as I steeled myself to break away from his revolting grasp.

"Stop..." I brusquely whine, realizing now that tears are spilling down my cheeks.

As if drowned by a torrent of mingling memories and rusted, yet all too familiar emotions, the surging pressure clamping down on my head drastically intensifies. Choking back the sobs threatening to escape my mouth, I stare down at my trembling hands as a reverberating, internal screech pierces only through my head.

Bakugou? My phone. Where... Ah. My head. It hurts. No. Stop. Please stop. No. No. Why—

As if my very guts are being fondled, a rancid bile bites the back of my throat. With swaying movements, I stagger to my feet and struggle to steady my equilibrium as I walk as though crossing a tightrope strung up between two skyscrapers. Wrapping an arm around my abdomen, I soon find myself feebly coughing up a few petals into the sink of my bathroom. After a few seconds of my enervated coughing, however, my stomach is voided into the sink with a pungent wash of an acerbic mix of liquids and flimsy solids.

Fainting into a blinding maw of speckled white as reality becomes fragmented and dusty, I can no longer discern what is palpable from what my mind spontaneously creates.

What is going on? I can't... Where...

The warping world of a whirling white and black fades before me. Once it emerges with a vague clarity, however, I peel open my eyes to see a familiar, tidy room. The warming, endearing scent I'm extraordinarily fond of surrounds me as a natural emanation from my current location.

What time is it?

Swiftly orienting myself to sit upright, I'm greeted by a reassuring, charming voice within my immediate propinquity. "Oi, oi." Bakugou. "Not so damn fast. Sit your ass back down." Crawling up from the floor in a neutral black tank top, Bakugou hands me my phone; I check it to see that it's eleven in the morning—past the start time for U.A. "How do you feel?"

I shake my foggy head and concentrate my bleary eyes on Bakugou. Like I want to die. Literally. "Fine," I sigh, rubbing my eyes lightly. "It... My head hurts."

"I still don't believe you. I'm sure it's worse than that." He glances at my hands to see that I'm trepidatiously picking at my nails. "Aizawa's excusing us today. Anyway, I didn't mean to read the text that that piece of sh*t sent you earlier this morning, but you can read it for yourself." He tosses me a package of dorayaki. "What do you want for breakfast? Well, I guess brunch is more like it. You slept for f*ckin' ever."

I'm hungry, but I feel awful. This light-headedness will only be exacerbated if I don't eat. I don't want to. How queer. I eat quite a bit when I've already reached satiety, yet I seldom find myself desiring it when I am hungry. I've no explanation for these anomalous tendencies of mine.

Sighing, I bat away the ambiguity occupying my mind and begin to slowly gnaw at the dorayaki given to me. "Just this," I answer monotonously.

Swallowing down a small bite of the snack, it feels as though a burning blade is slicing through my throat. This may become an issue. Forcing down another few bites while my throat furiously burns, I set the remainder of the dorayaki aside.

Now sitting beside me on his bed, Bakugou transiently rolls his eyes. "'Kay. I get it. Probably hurts. Now, what happened? I brought you here cuz my old hag was awake when I went to get you. Tch. She came with me and brought you back here." His fingers tightly curl inwards before relaxing and repeating.

I'm...such a burden. "Endeavor. I remembered then. Afterwards, I don't remember much." Scratching at my arm, I flinch at the hand grasping mine.

I can't breathe. Again? No... It transpires so frequently whenever I think—

Reeling my hand out from beneath Bakugou's, I notice the subtle look of defeat that washes over his stunning eyes before I cover my mouth with my hand. Unable to fight back the itching impulse to cough, my shoulders jerk forwards as I stumble out of Bakugou's bed and into the bathroom. Hacking up another round of petals to alleviate the stinging twitches coursing through my chest, I internally revile my daft inability to remain stationed in reality rather than in the realm of my traumatic memories.

Ambling towards Bakugou's bed after my incident in the bathroom, he asks once more if I'm okay. "This has been happening way too much for my liking. There's something wrong with you. You sound like you're about to cough up your insides, and you've been doing it more frequently." His arms lace over each other.

There certainly is something wrong with me if petals and blood are spewing from my lungs. "I know," I murmur with a somewhat hoarse voice.

Fishing out my phone from my pocket, I decide to scour for some potential answers as to why I might have petals sprouting inside of my body. After typing in my question to my search engine, the glaring result is a certain disease labeled as the "Hanahaki Disease." Reading the general description of the disease, I can practically confirm that this is what has been ravaging my body.

Unrequited love? I cogitate. I daresay that I do not love anyone in the way this implicates. I could never allow myself to feel such a sublime emotion. Loving someone else... What a puerile idea. Perhaps this disease has some other inexplicable facets widely unbeknownst to its victims. A mutation might also be the case. If only I knew. A plant producing yellow petals... I wonder.

With staunch efforts invested into researching the disease afflicting me, I conclude that the flower growing in my lungs is a yellow chrysanthemum. Even so, I cannot yield an unequivocal answer without first knowing that the petals have fully developed or I begin to hack up the flowers themselves.

Who would suffice as possible candidates for those that I 'love' to have potentially caused this disease? Bakugou is the first to come to mind. He looks at Kirishima differently, however. He would not have made such an asinine decision as to have loved me. I feel a certain warmth around him no one else can provide me with, however. Yaoyorozu. She put together the pieces leading to the fact that I am culpable for self-harm. She gave me her hand and a place to stay when I was plucking shards of glass from my shoulders after being thrown out the door by Endeavor. I did enjoy it when my hand was in hers, yet it lacked the effervescence I experienced when I held Bakugou's. How peculiar. Midoriya. Words cannot begin to explain how much I look up to him. He sacrificed so much to save me from the demons abolishing the use of my left half. He is always so sweet. He truly is a Hero. Would I truly have fallen for either the penultimate or final candidates?

Shifting my position in Bakugou's bed as I continue to ponder about the disease, I begin thinking of the end result. The fell petals of yellow stained in red will be my end if I choose not to receive the surgery to remove the plant; I would no longer have the ability to love that person. If my supposed form of 'love' is the warmth I've felt with Bakugou, then...I would not want to watch as it burns away. I deserve to suffer through that death. Positioned now on my stomach with my chin pressed into a pillow beneath my neck, I continue scrolling through lines of text. Perhaps it would be for the best if I allowed it to overtake me. How long do I have to live? I've no clue. What a surreal feeling...

Now viewing the message that Endeavor sent to me at six in the morning, I furrow my brows at its connotations. I will be speaking with you when I return, I read to myself from the message. If you flee from my arrival, there will be consequences.

Anything I do sows the rotten seeds of consequences after a slew of other consequences. Endeavor barked that I look hideous with my scars, despite the fact that he never ceases to add another to my collection whenever he touches me. Such a paltry statement somehow assuages my guilty conscience, and I only find myself craving one more cut. One more wound. One more scar that makes me hideous to him. If I attain my zenith of this hideousness, perhaps then it will end... What reprehensible thoughts. I'm itching for another. Just one. Not yet.

Once Bakugou returns to his room, I flick away all traces of my research and roll over onto my side to face him. "I'm well eno—"

"Nope," he immediately states, cutting down my words. "Not gonna allow it. You need to take today off to rest. Yeah, I said you slept for forever, but you obviously slept so long for a reason." He now tosses me a small bottle of milk.

I don't particularly want to, even if I am hungry.

The cool, moist exterior of the bottle in my shaking hand honestly feels rather pleasant. Pressing it to my forehead, I silently sigh in relief to myself.

"I'm fine now. I've been fine. I can function there."

He shakes his head. "Bullsh*t is all I hear. You're sick or something, so rest to get rid of it sooner. Don't rub salt into the wound. Now drink the damn milk." He tosses his hands into the air.

"Sorry."

Popping off the cap of the milk, I press my lips to the cool rim and take a swig of the sweet, rich fluid. The taste reminiscent of the highlights of my life soothes my mind, yet the agitated liquid crawling down my throat only aggravates the burn. Coughing a bit without parting my lips, I run my fingers across my neck.

"Todoroki-kun, are you all right?" Yaoyorozu asked in the midst of a sparse coughing fit of mine while at Ground Gamma.

Removing my hand from my mouth to speak to her, the obtrusive hues of yellow and red were splattered across my fingers. "Fine, thank you," I sighed with a minor kink in my pitch while setting aflame the blood and petals contaminating my hand.

She squinted her brows at me while I tucked away my hands to conceal the one charred with blood. "I'm certain I saw blood on your hand."

"It's nothing," I uttered with an uncharitable emanation slithering from my words.

Her head swayed vaguely left and right from what I presumed was dubiety. "Are—"

Yaoyorozu's whisper was decimated by Kirishima's resounding, beatific voice. "Hey! Todoroki, our match is starting soon. Don't wanna mi—"

His hand grasped my left arm as I turned to face him. "Ah!" I grunted, mildly startled by the fact that he had made physical contact with me outside of battle or training.

"Oh," he then murmured as I precipitously recoiled from his grasp. "S-Sorry about that. Man, you okay?" His solicitude simply tugged down on the corners of my lips.

"A few moments, please," I sighed through my gritted teeth, retaining my composure and wincing at the scorching pain in my arm.

Kirishima nodded. "Yeah... All right. Got it." Dejectedly did he rub the back of his neck as he walked off.

Yaoyorozu, with flurried movements, lowered her folded hands from around her chin as I briefly surveyed our surroundings to ensure that there were no onlookers to the hapless spectacle that had unfolded. I pulled up the sleeve of my Hero costume and released a sigh; I was certain that my recent cuts had reopened. Unraveling my bandages and setting them aflame, I shook my head at the beads of crimson drizzling down my arm.

"These are fresh..." she remarked with a crestfallen countenance. "Todoroki-kun..."

With a begrudging lour, I scoffed, "It doesn't matter. You—"

"Please don't ever say that about yourself," she pleaded with vehement conviction. "It might not have been direct, but...it matters to me. I can't simply allow this to continue. Todoroki-kun, these are incredibly deep. I...cannot allow this. You can't do this to yourself." Dressing my self-inflicted wounds, she bit her lip.

What will you do, I wonder. "I'm sorry," I sighed, not daring to meet her harrowed eyes of onyx. Would you prefer that I drink away my problems and hurt the people around me far more than cutting could ever amount to? "I can't help myself." I roll my sleeve back down as she finishes her work.

She peered up at the pastel blue of the sky. "I truly do believe that we should consider finding you a therapist. I'm saying this with what's most beneficial to your health in mind. I know it must not sound appealing, but I worry about you a lot."

If I cannot lay out a spiel of the thoughts plaguing my mind to Bakugou, I should think I would shut fast my jaw for a therapist. As sweet as you are for considering that, I would be quite the burden. I've been...friends...with Bakugou for over a year now, and I still cannot bring myself to say the truth.

If I succumb to this disease, he deserves to hear the truth from my mouth. Not as a note of what is virtually suicide, but from me. He would have no regrets if I still had some time before departing from the world after speaking the truth, no?

"Bakugou?" I tersely whisper, cracking the silence saturating his room.

"Mm?" he grunts, promptly pinning his attention on me.

I scratch at my arm before coming to this realization and forcing my arm to retreat from my injuries. "Eventually...I do intend to tell you everything. Not yet, but one day." I stare at my left hand, which has become the unspoken wielder of scarlet and yellow.

"One day, huh?" A smirk pinches his alluring lips. "Not sure what's necessitating you to do that, but I'm hella grateful. You better keep that goddamn promise, Todoroki. But, hey. You had the balls to tell me that, and for once, it didn't sound like some bullsh*t lie. Hope you know I'm proud of you. 'Sides, you've been opening up bit by bit. Your barriers are some worthy opponents, but they ain't stronger than me. I'm gonna rescue you from the hell you've closed yourself off in whether you like it or not." He extends his hand to me as an incredibly faint flood of red mantles his cheeks.

Whether I like it or not... "I'm a refractory enigma. I apologize for that." I grasp his hand with my right as a constricting flash of heat soars through my bones.

As our interlaced hands hold together with a resolute grip, Bakugou begins to firmly shake my hand up and down. "We're gonna do this. We're gettin' you through this. I promise that to you if you promise to tell me everything." I nod, but our amicable embrace of digits is unwavering and resolute.

So warm. His hand is warm. He is warm. The room is warm. I feel warm inside. Even if my heart is still cold, the warmth nips at it every now and again. If the surgery were to dismantle this warmth into nothingness...

Our lingering grip, although loosened from its prime, it retains its tenacity. Feeling such a pleasant dispersion of calm, yet effervescent energy quickens my pulse.

Directing my gaze from our hands to Bakugou's expression, I notice that his raptured eyes are staring into mine. Now locking eyes, I can see my reflection in his imperial lakes of scarlet. Rather than veering away from the eye contact fixed on my body, I gravitate towards it like metal to a magnet.

His eyes are unlike Endeavor's. Bakugou's gleam with such refulgent clarity. Endeavor's are glazed by drunken murkiness and detachment. What I find to be most salient, however, is that Bakugou's eyes are the inverse of Endeavor's, and that...they are not filled with lust.

Endeavoring to glance further into the radiant red pools before me, I become au fait with my own consciousness absorbing my surroundings only when Bakugou begins to draw himself towards me with movements almost perfunctory, yet seemingly intentional. Those dazzling rubies captivating my attention now glisten with a certain, familiar warmth. His free hand nonchalantly glides around my torso at the crests of my upper section of ribs.

His touch is unlike Endeavor's. Bakugou...

An entrancing warmth from our gentle breaths soughing through the forest known as reality is tenderly exuded. Affable placidity is dinned into my mind from the constituents of such a remarkable moment of pink, perfervid grandeur at last intertwining. Sweet, sticky motions appear as though traversing through lakes of rich milk. Features are imbued with a feathery film of a burning pink—nothing is laced with a dogged lust, jadedness, or consternation—from the natural fluidity of our mutual desires.

So pleasant. So comforting. So comfortable. So warm.

As Bakugou's hand that's pressing lightly into my back nudges me towards him, an assaulting vociferation of metal slamming heavily against metal blares from outside. This bombarding sound to my mind is reminiscent of the preface to a multiplicity of my beatings. Although once blasé about abrupt strikings of intense sounds, the slamming of a car door is far too familiar for my typical insouciance.

Sharply inhaling through my nose as my shoulders leap upwards, I tear away my hand from Bakugou's assuring grip and stumble backwards.

"For f*ck's sake..." Bakugou tempestuously mutters. "You okay?" I nod, despite the onslaught of memories crashing down over my head and the rapidness of my breaths. "You should get back in bed. I'll deal with the old hag." Extending his hand to me again, the fleeting friction of our hands sliding into each other's ensues as I'm pulled up to my feet. "She's probably gonna bust in here in a few minutes to make sure you're all right." He now exits through the door to his room.

He looks so f*cking precious when he's sleeping. Goddammit. Am I blushing again? I can't feel like this. I'm already with Kiri. We haven't told anyone, but it still doesn't feel right. Why the hell does Todoroki make me blush so damn much? When Kiri asked me out...I was over the moon. Course, I didn't show that. Tch. Is it because he's the first person I've considered to be a true friend? Tch. Deku...doesn't count. That's different. Am I mistaking friendship for love? Sure, the damn ray of red sunshine makes me smile and blush, but I don't feel the same thing when I'm with him as I do with this peppermint swirl. I know I'm gay, but...maybe that was just my emotions being all overzealous that I'd found someone who could be a match for me. Tch. Besides... I saw Ponytail holding Todoroki's hand. She even asked to meet him alone.

He told me the scars on his arms are from Endeavor, and at first, I believed him. Damn piece of sh*t pierced a hole through his own son's shoulder. I still wouldn't put it past the asshat. But...he scratched his arm when I asked if he'd ever thought about self-harm. I'm sure some of those scars are from that asshole, but I need to ascertain a definitive answer. Sorry, Todoroki, but I need to know. Bandages... Just as I suspected. You keep saying it isn't the fault of that jackass, but you're cutting because of him. I know it. Tch. The fact that you've even thought to put a blade to your skin even once sickens me. Then to do it and keep doing it over and over again. How many of those f*cking scars are self-inflicted? Even without him here, you feel the need to hurt yourself. You keep saying it's all your fault, but you aren't responsible for his decisions! Can't emphasize that enough.

Is he gonna let go of my hand? Does he want me to? I don't want to. Does he? f*ck me. I mean... God. f*cking. Dammit! That way's fine, too. Tch. His eyes look so empty and timid, yet they're...beautiful. Oh, sh*t—he's looking at me. sh*t. Huh? This feels strangely comfortable. His lips are so enticing. I'm in a goddamn relationship with Kiri already! But I...don't think I feel the same way as I thought I did. I want to kiss this asshole right now. Does he even like guys? Tch. Probably not after the hell Endeavor put him through. I'd be deterred from both guys, men, and f*cktards like him. Still... He's also leaning in. He should know what I'm doing if I do this. He's fine with that. 'Kay. Just don't touch his waist. I'm getting all sweaty just running my hand slowly onto his back. Kiri, I think I'm gonna have to cut this relationship. I feel like I want to protect Todoroki, and I feel like this is what love really feels like. So...

Chapter 5: Scarlet Truth

Chapter Text

Bakugou's door releases a small whine as it opens and Mitsuki steps through with a grocery bag in each hand. Her head pokes through the door that's now ajar, and once she confirms that I'm awake, she grins and proceeds through. Bakugou follows suit behind her with his eyes low to the ground.

"Had a rough night last night?" she asks while setting her groceries on Bakugou's desk and rummaging around the bags for something.

'Rough' would be a severe understatement. "Sorry. I sincerely hope I didn't worry you," I sigh while inwardly chastising myself for provoking such an urgent scramble at such an ungodly hour to arrive at such an abominable place.

"You crack me up," she chuckles with a hearty snicker. "Don't worry about worrying about the people you think might be worried over you." Fishing out a thermometer and a small bottle of pills from the dense forest of miscellaneous and—much to the immaculate Bakugou's chagrin—randomly assorted items and goods in the grocery bags. "Would you believe it if I said Katsuki came crying to me over you? Guess I did manage to instill some manners into him." Once Mitsuki holds the tip of the thermometer to my mouth, I press it down beneath my tongue.

Bakugou rolls his eyes, scoffing, "I didn't f*cking cry to you. Don't make sh*t up, old hag. Oi, oi! Be careful, dammit!" His wry expression resembles that of a bulldog.

Mitsuki sneers, mouthing something inaudible before wheeling her head around to snap, "Don't you start swearing your head off at me, Katsuki!" Her hand balls into a fist before spreading out to point at Bakugou. "You don't behave like this around Eijirou and Shoto, do you?" Hearing my name in an assertive tone pokes my veins with pins of fire.

"Shoto!" Endeavor vociferated as a bestial, baritone growl. "You have three seconds before—"

Breathlessly staggering into the training room, I was instantaneously apprehended by a pair of greasy, grimy hands. Utterly appalled by the rancid claws gradually pinning me down to the tatami mats on the floor, I bit back the boiling bile bombarding my throat.

Blithe and perky, Endeavor's lips curled up to form a nefarious smile. "Such desperation can mean only one thing..." His abject eyes of turquoise pierced my stomach with keen flames.

I lack sufficient strength in order to defend myself, I haplessly realized as I gulped down the bitterness in my mouth that I'd long been surfeited with the frigid taste of. At your sides should your filthy digits remain. A struggle is futile. A succinct stratagem is of paramount importance. Even so, he would simply reprimand my advances to liberty. A puppet of vanity strung up by the threads of adversity must I be.

"Thought we lost you," Mitsuki sighs, handing me two small capsules and a glass of water. "No fever, though. Katsuki made it eminently clear to me that you're sick. Any ideas?"

He sounded as if he was flirting with me after that. I feel like vomiting. The way his hands explored my body... Ah. Mitsuki. Did she mention Eijirou? Kirishima? Why is it that his name has such deleterious effects on my mind? A benevolent soul is he. Then, why? Why does it hurt so much?

Prying my fingers from my arm once more, I shrug. "Something more detrimental to my health than a cold," I mutter distantly, still internally weaving my way through the threads of my memories as I force down the pills I was handed.

A disease that, by some inexplicable means, causes flowers to bloom from my lungs. The Hanahaki Disease that results in an inevitable death without surgery or requited love. What should I do in this unfortunate scenario that yields the desire I've supplicated for all these years?

- Week 4 -

My eyes are veiled by an immaculate black while I shift restlessly in the futon of my dorm. Despite my depleted energy and enervated body, my mind is eerily alert with fervently swirling thoughts. As if clashing blades with my mind, I meander through the depths of my looming, tenebrous thoughts of the past, present, and future. Once I can endure the crossfire of precipitous impulse and the act of seeking reconciliation no longer, I wrestle myself free from my futon to torpefy my mind for even a transient flash.

I cannot quell the injunctions conjured up by my mind. Even if I must plague my mind with guilt, would they not prefer that I cut to cope rather than succumbing to the suffocating sound of suicide? I would not have to think if I lacked a body to house my mind, and a mind itself. What was it that kept me awake in reality before Midoriya gave me his hand? Alone would I stand, staring down from that bridge to the obscure buildings and moving vehicles below. I'd been asked by a few who frequented that bridge for their daily routines what my purpose was for being there. I would always say I was looking for something, varnishing the truth while still being truthful. I persistently looked for reasons...to both live and die. There was a woman who asked me why I always had new injuries. I still remember the guilt I felt when I lied. She continued to gently prod for more information, but I didn't allow her to hear anything objectively from me. After a few weeks, however, I informed her that Endeavor was my father, and she no longer questioned me. I was thankful to be left alone, yet I felt so empty. I've not visited that bridge since the Sports Festival from last year. Veer away from such tempting thoughts. Instead, reap the pleasure of these divine scissors piercing through flesh again.

Whipping out the dual blades of chrome as I grip the left sleeve of my shirt and rip it upwards along my arm, I unravel the light bandaging wrapped around my flesh.

Just one... I command myself with plastic authority. Today was bewilderingly pleasant, save for the manifest flaws. Everything was so pleasant. Only once I crawled into my futon did my memories launch their mass assault. It was so pleasant. Why is it that I feel the same inside? Even when all is auspicious, I still want to sit idly and rebuke myself. I still want to drag this pair of scissors across my skin. I still...want to die. Why do I want to die when I have friends that would jeopardize their own wellbeing for mine? Why is it that their words are simply deflected? I reach for them, but I can never grasp them in time. I don't...have the right to want to die, yet I still contemplate it every night.

"Perhaps I would simply be more successful without your defective existence haunting this world."

The person who was practically responsible for creating me... I am the thing infringing on his own right to happiness. I am the thing of vanity that he still allows to live in his household. I am the thing that should be terminated. Ahh... Die. I truly should. Even when I tell myself to cast these thoughts asunder, they indignantly strike back in reprisal. Die, cut, cut, die. One. Erase it. Die. Cut. One. No. Yes—

Beneath the throaty ululating of the torrent of discord reverberating through my head, I fall prey to my inner beast. With adrenaline flaring up and judgment dispersing into the vacuity of nothingness, my mind, like a honed blade, thrusts frigid flames through my veins. The sweltering, distorted world sinking its teeth into my skin suddenly regains absolute clarity.

The abrupt insanity of my hectic mind is skewered, however, as a gelid line promptly writhes around until a blazing sharpness seeps into my consciousness.

Crimson.

The pin to my balloon of realizations is the hue of crimson; it's shattered mercilessly. Staring now at the trench of crimson smirking up at me from my arm, an acerbic gasp flushes through my being.

How deep...is this gash? I cerebrate as self-culpability fleetingly smudges my vision. Damn. It never dawned on me that I'd slashed through my arm until I saw the blood and felt its furious flames. This will not close naturally. A wound like this requires stitches. I've no needles and no thread or anything of the sort in my dorm. I would not deign to express this to Bakugou. Yaoyorozu... I suppose I must suffer the ramifications of disregarding her requests. A worthless disappointment I truly am.

Expeditiously retrieving my phone with my right hand, I dial for Yaoyorozu with my quaking thumb as the remainder of the digits of my right hand cradle the phone. After roughly seven seconds, she is benignant enough to make the visceral decision of picking up a sudden call at two in the morning.

Before Yaoyorozu can greet me, I hiss, "Yaoyorozu...I-I need to ask you something." My words are emphatic, yet staid by nature as I force them from my lips.

Guilt tramples my head as if pounding coals illuminated by yellow and orange into my skin. You will be disappointed in me beyond all else. I will never be more of a disappointment to anyone else than Endeavor and myself, but I wish that I did not have to bring disappointment to so many people. Forcing the guilt boiling in my stomach to simmer, I sigh at the pulsing of my head.

"Are you okay, Todoroki-kun?" she asks promptly with evident discomfiture lacing her overwrought voice.

Endeavoring to staunch the crimson river slithering from my arm to the floor below in small beadlets, I rise up to my feet in pursuit of proper medical supplies.

I hate to ask this of you, but I can ask no one else. "I didn't see how deeply I'd cut until..." I whisper, unable to finish my sentence.

"I'm heading over to your dorm immediately," she informs me with grim authority. "It's all right, Todoroki-kun. I'm not disappointed in you." It seems my thoughts are incredibly predictable. "How many are there?" Shuffling thumps jumble around my head as Yaoyorozu's phone picks up her sprinting.

"One. It's extensive enough to qualify as three or four," I state, managing to muster up my phlegmatic persona as I drag myself to the door. "I sincerely apologize for failing and worrying you simultaneously." With a click, I unlock the door for Yaoyorozu. "It wasn't my intention—this I swear." I now slink down along the side of the wall and sit up against it.

While Yaoyorozu gently admonishes my self-deprecating words and potential thoughts, my mind drifts to Bakugou and how consistently he reminds me not to be so horrifically critical of myself. Brooding over his farcical, yet sincere words, the familiar prick of petals being shed in my lungs provokes another fit of coughing, but as I begin to wheeze, the door to my dorm flies open. I stifle and manage to suppress my remaining coughs, despite how my breaths crackle in my throat.

"I'll get this taken care of," she assures me with the saturnine blossoming of a smile as I present my arm to her; her brows hike upwards as her eyelids peel open. "Does it hurt a lot?" Immediately kneeling down and scrutinizing the laceration running across my arm, her warm fingers graze my cool skin.

I shake my head. "Not significantly. It will soon." Hanging my head in self-reproach, I inwardly ask myself how I've allowed myself to feel comfortable with her dressing my wounds.

The audacity of my naïveté is indisputably execrable. Daft, reviling remarks are all I hear it utter in such shrill shrieks. I wish I could incinerate this ceaseless desire to die. It isn't that I want to finally be happy...but I could perhaps obviate their worrying. I wish. I think. I hope. Despite my efforts and their efforts—unbeknownst to them—to finally become jaded with this longing for death, my thoughts of suicide have only increased over the years. I just...feel so damn sad. I've learned to quell my emotions before an audience with indifference, but that heightens the depressive wave I feel when I'm at last alone. Even when all is well and his warmth is radiated beside me, I can't...erase how I feel inside. I'm exhausted from feeling like this. Of feeling only sorrow, pain, and nothing at all even when their efforts aid in momentarily mitigating the pain. I'm exhausted. So I cut. I cut and cut until my abject dolor begins to fade and the pain throbbing in my heart is replaced by the preferable pain of my skin being slit. I cut until I forget...

"Disgusting."

Why do you look at me like you always do whenever you touch me like that, then?

I can never function properly when I recollect my memories from him. I always want to cry out in agony, but I cannot allow myself to do that before anyone. I always want to cut until my thoughts distort and I forget once more, but here I am in this deplorable predicament. I always want to wring my own neck until I falter and put myself out of my own inexpiable misery. I always want to, but I...never can.

The sensation of glass searing my skin winds up my muscles into taut states while I sharply press my teeth into my tongue. Wincing with a subtle grunt, I can feel as my left arm spasms from the frigid fangs of the disinfectant being applied around my wound. Before long, the binding pressure of bandages coiling around my arm jerks around the blank neutrality of my facade.

"Todoroki-kun, I've dressed it to my best ability, but I can foretell that you'll bleed through, so I need to take you to the hospital," she informs me.

I clamp my eyes shut. "I would sooner purchase needle and thread to add the stitches myself," I hiss in a whisper through my teeth. "Sorry... Ah. I-I'm fine with that." I detest my own incompetence. "Really." I tug on my sleeve until it slinks down over the bandaging.

Yaoyorozu flashes a disconsolate, almost rueful smile. "I'm at a loss on what to believe...but I've decided that I will take you to Recovery Girl. Here." She helps me to my unsteady feet while I regain my balance by placing my free hand on the wall.

I should have eaten today, I internally scold myself. I will compensate by eating more tomorrow, regardless of whether or not it hurts or I simply do not feel like eating. That is what Bakugou would want, correct? I am quite hungry as it is, but I would prefer to wait until the condition of my throat is ameliorated.

Stumbling forwards towards the door, I cling to the side of the wall with violently trembling limbs. My body crumbles towards the floor as if doing so is now a habit. Raspy breaths leak through my lips while I refrain from coughing.

Get up, I command myself virulently. Walk. Are you so weak that you cannot stand? Worthless. You act as though you seek her pity. Disgusting. Get up.

"Todoroki-kun, this is awfully reminiscent of...then," she gently sibilates. "I'm fine," I scoff, generating a few metallic whines and clinks as I open the door. "You were so thin," she presses, following suit behind me. "I'm fine now. I've had the luxury of being able to eat, thankfully," I maunder disparagingly.

After Yaoyorozu contacts Recovery Girl and the two of us gradually trudge into the infirmary, I'm seated at one of the familiar, sterile beds of white. Upon the query of why I'm here for urgent matters being presented to me, I avert my eyes from Recovery Girl and peel the sleeve concealing my bandaged wound and scars to my shoulder. From the corner of my eye, I catch the motion of Yaoyorozu nodding her head. Resting my chin on the palm of my right hand, I can feel Recovery Girl removing the bandages hugging my arm fast.

'All I want you to do is remember how f*cking perfect you are. I'm not sayin' that as a snide retort or anything. I wish...you could see what I mean.' I suppose I am perfect... I am a perfect candidate for the lingering effects of adversity seizing my life.

Presumably inspecting the depth of the gash in my arm, Recovery Girl warily inquires, "Was this...a suicide attempt?" With unanticipated astonishment soaking my discountenanced thoughts, I meet her dejected gaze and shake my head slowly.

'Sure as hell hope you know how damn glad I am to have you here with me.' Hearing the initial assumption to be a suicide attempt... My chest is tightening again. It hurts. My heart feels cold. I can feel the petals scratching at my throat again. Suicide attempt... If this was a subliminal attempt to end it all, then why could I not have been successful? Why did I...request assistance? I can feel the tears forming. I can't. Don't let them know. Preserve the facade.

Phosphorescent ribbons of emerald curl around my arm where my major laceration lies, but the veil of green still ensconces the entirety of my limb.

"I don't...believe it was," Yaoyorozu verbally answers with concern eminently manifest in her foreign lilt. "Todoroki-kun called me—he was seeking aid for this."

'Tch. Don't make me repeat myself, dammit. Until you feel unadulterated, true, genuine happiness, I'm not gonna stop.' Bakugou... You are never eluded by my lies, but you are astoundingly precise and accurate with what you declare as bullsh*t. Does my attention divert when I lie? Am I simply so predictable?

"How predictable, even for a rotten animal. Leave my sight."

Although the cuts that had been healing on my arm are now nothing more than visible scars, and the lethal laceration as well, I ponder whether or not a Quirk exists to heal the scars transparent to the eye. Dismissing such grandiose ideas of inanity, I still cannot fully suppress the thoughts pertaining to the rehabilitation of my debilitated heart. The scars beneath my skin are the ones I cannot bandage, so they flare up; I feel like I'm suffocating. The wounds inside without any tangible traces are so horrifically excruciating with the detestable emotions they evoke; I wish I could simply vomit up these festering, invisible wounds to purge the pain that torpefies my mind and instills a seemingly perpetuated desire to erase myself through self-destruction.

'You know what? Whenever I suspect you're feeling particularly down, I'm gonna hug you. Don't f*cking call me soft.' Whenever we remain within a mutual propinquity of each other and the duration exceeds thirty minutes or so, I always have to leave to squeeze the petals from my lungs. Whenever your presence draws near, my chest is struck with another ceaseless itch. Ah. What a hapless coincidence. No. This time... I have to leave.

"I..." I manage to muster up my quivering, raspy voice for a prolonged syllable before the culmination of petals in my lungs revokes my ability to breathe.

Desperately flailing from the bed to the floor, I bolt my jaw shut as Yaoyorozu and Recovery Girl simultaneously lift me up to my feet with the intention of shoving me directly back into the bed.

No. I need to leave. I can't breathe. Any movement of air scratching beyond my tongue will unfetter a behemoth of coughing. I can't breathe...

"Todoroki, I can't allow you to leave yet," Recovery Girl informs me with what I deduce is an obligatory derivative for her motive.

One slight, involuntary twitch of my throat forces me to jerk my head down towards the ground as I begin the process of hurling petals and blood from my mouth. The noxious, internally irritating sensation of the flower petals scraping my insides as they're jumbled through my system is perhaps the equivalent of shoving my fingers down my throat.

Retching up the petals stained in blood while something ticklish with many thin, light arms—I assume this to be the plant my body nurtures—yanks swiftly through my lungs like a small feather duster being shoved through them each time I inhale or exhale, I find myself gagging.

Throwing up after an especially strenuous training session with Endeavor, I was on my knees on the floor. Pregnable with my attention wrapped around the fact that I was throwing up, my body was soon thrust headlong at the wall moments before my collision with it.

"I've got it. Here."

"Thank you, Yaoyorozu."

"Shoto, you must be prepared to endure the relentless attacks that will be thrown your way," Endeavor scoffed with gelid words while I feebly turned my head to see him crossing his arms at me. "You will not be given any clemency. You should have anticipated a follow-up attack. It doesn't matter what might have been plaguing your mind, or what your body wanted to do. It will not stop the next attack from your opponent. Now, get up and try again."

Although aware of the trash bin tilting around on the floor from my grasp, I've not yet processed anything beyond my own thoughts and actions.

Just like then...

Although now continuing to gradually decrease in intensity and frequency, my hoarse, throbbing coughs continue to pummel the air.

My chest heaved with my aggravated hyperventilation, but my inert body was unable to struggle as my consciousness slipped away into darkness. While weaving between the warmth of unconsciousness and the frigidity of consciousness, I eventually felt a certain warmth around my body and rhythmic bumps moving my stationary body.

Now with my hands clasped around my decimated throat, I stare down into the trash bin beneath my head with a grimace. Wincing at the streams of my breath that feel as though they carry blades through my raw insides, I muster up the perfunctory lift of my head.

The following day, I awoke in my futon with different clothing from what I'd been wearing during training.

Dad...

Glancing at the massive scar streaking down my arm, a vice of the crushing guilt of reality at last wriggling into my head threatens to disfigure my stomach. Recalling Yaoyorozu's reaction to the severity of my self-inflicted wound and Recovery Girl's immediate assumption of an attempt at suicide upon unraveling the bandages masking the scarlet truth beneath, I ask myself again why I called Yaoyorozu.

"Are you all right, Todoroki-kun?" queries the fuzzy, reposeful voice of Yaoyorozu.

I nod my head languidly, and as I part my lips to speak, I realize that my voice has evanesced. What do I say to Bakugou? Can I say anything? Recovery Girl doesn't seem convinced that that cut was not an attempt. I suppose that I would not put it past myself to have deceived myself with the thought that it was an accident. Staring at my hands, I close my eyes for a second or two.

"Todoroki?" Recovery Girl asks, drawing my pupils to hers. "Do you know what this disease is?" I nod. "When did you first notice any symptoms?" She hands me a clipboard with paper and a pen to write down my answer; I write down that I might have been developing symptoms for it about four weeks ago. "It's progressing faster than usual... Todoroki, have you thought about receiving surgery to remove the plant? I'd say you have about two or three months or less before the flowers completely prevent you from breathing. Is that why—"

I shake my head and write, I'm being honest when I say it was an accident. I did, however, intend to cut. My hand lifts the pen from the paper so that the tip hovers just above the thin sheet of white. I made a promise that I don't intend to break. Nonetheless, I've still been thinking about it. I don't know what I want to do yet. I hand the clipboard to Recovery Girl, who positions it so that both she and Yaoyorozu can comfortably read it.

Yaoyorozu, whose hand still covers her mouth after hearing that I have only a few months left to live, questions, "Might I ask who it is that...brought this disease upon you? Two or three months..." Her glassy eyes of a dolorous onyx cause my own tears to threaten to pour from my eyes.

Don't look at me with such a sad face, I think, struggling to remain as the stolid student I've built my glass reputation up from. You should be thankful. You should not miss me. It hurts even more...knowing how much you care. It hurts. It makes me feel so alone, somehow. I don't want you to care. I would prefer to die knowing that I did not affect anyone with my death. I wish not to cause further harm. I inflict that harm on myself, yet the others notice. They worry. Why? Why...would they care? I am no one of significance. Her lachrymal eyes are going to asphyxiate me. Sometimes, I wish I lacked the ability to see. It hurts to see their harrowed expressions all directed at me.

Writing my answer down on the paper again, I write, I don't know. I don't like anyone like that. Bakugou is the most likely candidate.

I believe I remember a few instances last year when they held hands. Besides, I am 'friends' with Bakugou. He is my 'friend,' correct? Friend... Why does the word taste so rotten and potent?

After listening and responding to Yaoyorozu and Recovery Girl for another fifteen minutes or so discussing my pitiful disease, Recovery Girl asks me the same questions as I remember from when I was diagnosed with depression. Although I did consider answering truthfully with what little time remains for me, I decide against it and simply abstain from admitting the full truth. Now with prescribed antidepressants again and pills to reduce inflammation and help to mitigate the pain from the disease, Recovery Girl explains that Aizawa will be informed of my condition to monitor my behavior in the classroom setting; I find this to be an atrocious decision, but I nonetheless comply.

I suppose this is far superior to seeing a therapist and being put on suicide watch. I would certainly be mortified. Must Aizawa know of this disease and the fact that I am a depressed fool who is also seemingly—which is in fact truthfully—suicidal? Although he has been my teacher for the past year and a half, and he is a man with an eminent proficiency in his combat skills, that does not mean I trust him with this information. Perhaps that is simply selfish of me... Regardless, if it is the case that I truly do 'love' Bakugou, then that is most unfortunate. I should not burden him with how I feel if I do feel that way. Hm. How peculiar. I never thought that I might be attracted to someone of the same gender. The same gender? The way...he would look at me. The way he would touch me... I feel filthy on the outside and on the inside. Would Bakugou look at me like that and touch me like that if he loved me? Does he find that I look at him like that? Am I as filthy as Endeavor? How could I have been so blind? Disgusting... Filthy... Worthless.

Entering my dorm with Yaoyorozu at my side at the early hours of the sullen, serene morning, I attempt to force my voice to squirm until it escapes my throat. "Th-Thank... Thank...you," I squeak as though learning how to speak again, unable to muster up a feigned smile.

She nods. "In the event that you ever need my help again, I'll be here for you," she reassures me while I sit atop my futon, "but I digress. Todoroki-kun?" My eyes rest on her forlorn expression. "How long...have you been engaging in self-harm for?"

She deserves to know the truth after I seemingly tried to kill myself by slicing open my skin. I open my mouth to speak, but my wavering voice hitches. "Ah. I... I-It's been...seven years. I can tell...you more l-later." Unconsciously beginning to count the accumulation of scars protruding from and prominently visible on my arm without lifting the sleeve, I exceed fifty before my concentration dissolves.

After a few minutes of terse conversation and silence, she now queries, "I just want to make sure, but you were honest when you said that that cut was not...a suicide attempt, right?" Her doleful eyes force me to yield to the impulse of casting asunder my eyes from hers.

I nod, brushing my fingers over my sleeve where the large, hideous scar is. "I wouldn't...leave s-so abruptly. I'd...die with an ocean of r-regrets if I never fulfilled a p-promise I made with...Bakugou." Grasping my water bottle on my bedside table, I cautiously drink down scorching streams of somewhat lukewarm water.

"I'm glad to hear that," she says with a plaintive smile before pausing. "Todoroki-kun? If and when this promise is fulfilled, I still want you here. You've positively influenced a great many. You, Bakugou, and Midoriya-kun are at the top of our class. We'd all be devastated to lose you. You're a good person and a good friend, Todoroki-kun. How would you feel to lose Bakugou?"

I...truly do believe I would join him. I remain silent, shaking my head. I cannot imagine my life without him. Without him, I would unravel and fall apart. Because of him, I can still tell myself that I will do something the next day. If Bakugou died...you would put me before yourself and rush to stop me from following in his lead, wouldn't you? All that pain...just to keep me alive. You are mistaken, Yaoyorozu. I am not a good person, nor a good friend. You, however, are both.

"That's about how I would feel to lose you." Hearing her despondent claim, I immediately return my eyes to hers. "I would still feel different from how you would, but I'm certain you understand what I mean." She unfolds her hands from her lap and places her hand on the hand of mine scratching at my scars.

The following morning, merely a few hours succeeding my incident, my alarm shrieks in my ears to alert me to awaken, but I've simply been staring at the ceiling, haplessly awake. I don't want to move. I don't want to do anything. I'm tired. I don't want to be here. I have to get up. Bakugou and Yaoyorozu will be concerned if I am not present for breakfast or class. Get up. I'm so tired... Tired or not, I have to get up. Pulling myself upwards and dragging my legs towards my chin, I stare absent-mindedly at the wall for an approximation of five minutes before the realization that I've been staring strikes me.

My stomach twists and snarls as if insidiously reminding me of how I'd initially articulated that I would eat additional portions of food today. I just...don't want to. My body pesters me to eat, but I don't want to. I have absolutely no explanation or viable reasoning for this. I simply feel callous when Bakugou finds my health to be the fulcrum of his priorities. Why is it that anything that comes to mind feels like such an arduous enterprise? I wish not to speak with anyone. Even the tantalizing thought of being wrapped in Bakugou's embrace again... Not right now.

With excruciating effort, I haul my body to the shower and habitually steel myself for the cool streams of water to fly across my cuts. When the contact of the water to my arm fails to feel as though serrated teeth have jammed into my wounds, I tilt my head.

Before I've finished my daily routine in the bathroom and end up hacking up another round of yellow petals, I hear a knock at my door. Despite my chest being fleetingly free from the cobweb-like hold of the petals, I still find breathing to be abnormally, yet familiarly difficult. Cognizant of the denotations from my strained chest and shortened breaths coupled with my whirling light-headedness, I shake my head.

I need to eat, I inwardly hiss with acrimony while dressing myself. Bakugou would recognize my fatigued daze, and Yaoyorozu certainly would as well. Ah. There is someone at my door. Make haste, Shoto.

With considerably damp hair and a uniform that I'm currently in the process of buttoning up, I unlock the door to see Yaoyorozu. She sheepishly averts her eyes from my hands threading the lower buttons of my blazer up.

"I s-sincerely apologize, Todoroki-kun," she apologizes with a flustered stutter while I step out of the way from obstructing her ingress to my dorm. "Ah. Should I..." She briefly glances around before hesitantly stepping inside. "Thank you very much, Todoroki-kun. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was worried when I couldn't contact you by phone."

I leave my bathroom door open while I stare into the mirror at my hideous reflection and adjust my tie from there. "Sorry. I...was showering," I candidly remark with an amended voice from its previous state, although it's still quite hoarse. "I didn't worry you...did I?" I internally lambaste my incompetence yet again. "Sorry—you already answered th-that."

While I finish up in the bathroom, Yaoyorozu replies, "No worries. Nonetheless, I was going to ask if I could accompany you for breakfast." I nod. "Splendid! Thank you, Todoroki-kun. Tell me when you're ready."

I flick off the light in the bathroom and nod again as I approach her with a wavering gait. "'When you're ready.' Is that all right?" I lightly rub my eyes.

She smiles blissfully. "I'll take that as a yes."

Once we arrive at the common floor, Midoriya greets the two of us with an animated, uplifting smile. "Good morning!" He looks up to my mien and subtly pulls back his head a bit. "T-Todoroki-kun, are you okay?" He steps closer to me with his head tilted to view my face.

"Look at me." Endeavor's hand gripped my chin, curling partially around my cheeks and lower jaw as he stared into my eyes as though I'd been a specimen beneath a microscope. "Your eyes have been contaminated with fear."

Locking my gaze on Midoriya's eyes, I instinctively cease to breathe or blink.

"Oh! Uh, I p-probably made that super awkward..." he gulps, stepping back. "I'm so sorry about that. Umm. T-Todoroki-kun?"

Crashing back through the glass barrier separating my soaring thoughts from the depths of reality, I blink and shake my head. "Sorry," I sigh in a debilitated whisper as my eyes flick around the room and catch a glimpse at Aizawa's gray clothing and locks of jet-black hair.

"You look exhausted... Don't feel like you have to push yourself if you don't feel well enough," he says with such seemingly servile solicitude.

I scratch at my left arm. "Th-Thanks," I murmur, leaving my cold thanks to dangle in the air as I amble off.

Yaoyorozu apologizes for Midoriya and says something I can't quite decipher before following suit behind me.

After forcing myself to choke down breakfast and heading off to a virtually empty homeroom with Aizawa, Bakugou asks me how I'm doing while leaning up against my desk.

"I'm...fine," I sibilate.

"You look like you just crawled out of a f*cking grave," Bakugou retorts. "Tell me what happened."

"It doesn't m-matter."

He tips his head back and sharply inhales through gritted teeth. "Then what the f*ck happened to your voice?" he demands.

Please leave me alone. "I woke up...and—"

"Woke up? Right. The bags under your eyes beg to differ, so get some decent sleep, dammit. Oi. Stop." His daunting eyes of effulgent flames threaten to cut through my being as his hand grasps the hand of mine furiously clawing at my arm.

This warmth of yours that I relish and wish never to forget the feeling of... Why is your warmth what's killing me the most?

- Month 1, Week 1 -

Tonight is the night that Endeavor returns from his trip to America. His absence over the past month has been a superlative experience, and yet I still feel the same. Even though I may as well be the most fortunate person for the bonds I have the honor of heightening, the compassion and visceral benevolence of those I hold close, and the luxury of the life I live and the vital and frivolous things in it, I still feel as though I'll shatter into irreparable shards each time I feel emotion. Although I am inclined to believe that this evidence alone should suffice as authentication that Endeavor is not the one culpable for the maelstrom of torment that drives knives through my chest, it seems that no evidence will serve to coerce anyone but me.

Standing atop the stage adorned with decorations to inveigle the audience with the thought that all flows in a predetermined, lovely cadence, I have donned another set of masks for the masquerade interwoven into the play of reality to perpetuate my ulterior, designing ways. Waltzing aimlessly with au fait movements by the transparent strings embedded into my limbs, I must certainly be viewed for my adept skills and commendable profile. Beyond the blinding lights, behind the enrapturing motions, and beneath the defining masks, however, is the me that I wish I did not have to be.

Since Bakugou was adamant on being informed of the day that Endeavor would return from his voyage of sorts to America, he made it eminently evident that he will be spending the entirety of today with me. As such, it is by Bakugou's supreme, executive decision that the two of us are going out for lunch together. Prior to leaving, I void my system of the yellow clumps of petals that had been strung up in my lungs.

"Are you certain we should go out for lunch?" I ask Bakugou after retching up the godawful petals of yellow in the bathroom.

I can envision a twinge of a writhing, itching pain in my chest causing me to brusquely scramble to reach the bathroom. Damn. There will more than likely be others present. I am positive no one would like to hear someone coughing maniacally. How unsanitary. Filthy. Disgusting.

Bakugou offers a resolute nod. "Hell yeah, I'm certain. You never leave your dorm or your house or whatever unless it's imperative you do."

Now considerably overwrought from the idea of others being present for my purging of petals of blood, I sigh, "I'm not very hungry." Lifting my sweatshirt over my head, my long-sleeved shirt rises up over my hips a bit to reveal some of my flesh.

"You bein' honest?" He inquisitively tilts his head while I nod. "How did it go from you being hungry all the time to almost never? Todoroki, you haven't been eating very much lately." He crosses his arms.

I've felt somewhat full and nauseous, although I assume this is from ingesting blood and petals to reduce the frequency of my sudden departures. "I know. I just don't feel like it. I feel nauseous. I'm sorry." I lightly press my hand against my stomach while dejectedly hanging my head.

I must be a disappointment again. I am so incredibly selfish, then. All I am...

"Always thinking about itself, I see. Only concerned about itself. Whining about mere scratches and bruises. You should be f*cking disappointed in yourself, you f*cking failure."

I simply bring them down. I hurt them. I worry them. I did not stop him. Why...am I so worthless? All that I do...hurts someone. Why? What gave me the right to hurt others like this? Truly, if I died, would that not be for the best? My chest aches with guilt. It hurts again. Again? No. Simply more than I typically feel. I'm so tired of the pain inside. It hurts so much. Why?

Warm, robust arms slip around my torso as Bakugou rests his chin on my shoulder. "I've gotcha," he whispers with his sonorous, alluring voice. "Don't beat yourself up. Don't blame yourself, either. I can hear you berating yourself in there. It's not your fault, dammit." His grip tightens around my trembling body.

How many times must I reiterate that it is my fault? "I disagree," I murmur with rancor dusting my words.

His hair brushes along my cheek. "Goddammit. What the hell do I have to do to change your mind? C'mere." Scooping me up from the floor and into his embrace, he positions me bridal style in his arms and locks his gaze with mine to ensure I feel comfortable.

I nod as he carries me to a nearby couch. "I don't think you can," I admit, diverting my gaze while Bakugou settles himself against the corner of the couch between the armrest and back cushion. "I can't hate anyone but..." Damn. What do I say now?

"But?" he questions, insinuating me into his embrace so that I rest atop his thighs.

Will he hurt me? Look at me with such lascivious eyes? Would he...touch me there? Is he simply luring me in to tear me down? Certainly not... Right? Can I trust him not to?

I nuzzle my head into the crook of his neck. "Am I heavy?" I exhale softly.

"Yeah, right. Not at all. You don't think you're fat, do ya? I think you're perfect. Tch. I mean that." With cheeks mantled with an effervescent peach, he tilts his head away from me.

Why are you so kind to me? "I disagree. I think...I'd argue that you're perfect." I suppose I feel warm inside when I dote on him, but I don't deserve to receive anything of the sort. "But... Never mind." My fingers gently tug the fabric of Bakugou's shirt towards my palms.

He lightly snorts. "Won't say you're not right, but I'm not blind to the truth, either. Anything you wanna get off your chest?" The deft dance of his fingers across my back soothes my being, yet as well as providing me with the feeling of insects with thin, skittering legs creeping through my chest, it feels almost as though I know his warmth is around me, but I've been torpefied inside and fail to feel it.

There are times I wish I could tell you how much I want to die to find a reprieve from the adverse fate I've been inextricably tethered to. "It hurts...and I don't know why," I reply with forlorn fortitude.

"Physical pain or somethin' inside?" His husky voice kisses my ears.

I haven't cut since then. Yaoyorozu was proud of me for that. She seemed so relieved. How could I continue my heinous infringement of... To forget again. The memories are overflowing. I can't forget, but I can fleetingly forget when I mutilate myself. I've felt so empty without it. When I don't feel that emptiness, I feel like collapsing to the ground and sobbing until someone or something lends me a hand or kicks me aside. It hurts. To forget about the ruthless, excruciating pain in my heart and from my heart, I cut, but...

"Only my chest and throat physically hurt." Silently inhaling Bakugou's unparalleled scent through my nostrils, I close my eyes.

Putting aside the memories stalking me from then, I feel so comfortable and warm like this. It is so reminiscent of when I'd straddle his leg and he would press my head into his chest, but it feels different this time. I still cannot quite entertain the thought of wholly trusting that this will not simply result in my backstabbing, but I feel safe. He would not deliberately encroach on and shatter the peripheries of my personal space there, would he?

"Mind if I touch—"

No. This is what I feared. I tense, curling my limbs a bit inwards.

"—your arm?" he finishes.

My arm? You have already repulsed your eyes with the sight of my scars a myriad of times, so it would be quite queer to decline. I nod, figuring that Bakugou is repositioning himself. He always first asks for my permission. He always realizes when impulse has overridden his typical thoughts, and he then apologizes. Why is he so considerate? Compassionate? Patient? Why? I would never have thought him to be so 'soft' previously. If this is the treatment I receive, then what must Kirishima receive?

"That hurt?" Bakugou questions, although my thoughts have gifted me with glass wings once more to abscond from reality; I nonetheless shake my head. "I see. Well, anything else you wanna say?" He rests his cheek against my skull slicked over with red and white hair.

"Your swearing was scarce," I comment, forcing a chuckle from my throat.

While tucking me into my futon, Fuyumi sighed, "Your laugh is so precious, Sho. But I haven't heard it in a while. It would mean a lot to me to hear your laugh again sometime soon." She planted a kiss on my cheek.

How hideous. How wretched. How deplorable. An ignoramus such as I should not have the privilege of laughing, even if feigned. What, then, was necessitating such a peculiar urge to force myself to laugh? What an inconceivably abstruse person I must be.

Bakugou's head shifts, pulling back to stare at me in bewilderment. "Did you just laugh? Damn. Hey. If I swear less, you should laugh every now and again. It's..." His imperial, gleaming eyes glance down. "Tch. Look. It's nice to see your dour face with some kind of emotion on it that doesn't have negative connotations. It's nice to hear your voice with life in it, you monotone, calm-ass soldier." Meeting my gaze again, he seems almost to be enamored by my eyes. "But your eyes say everything." He frowns.

I've grown to despise my eyes. "Why do you like looking at my eyes? They're...unsightly, unlike yours. I like yours."

"Tch. f*ck you," he spits, despite the heightened hue of peach creeping across his cheeks. "What the hell makes you think that about mine? You know what? Never mind. Why do you think your eyes are unsightly, Todoroki?" His majestic eyes of ruby implore that I speak the truth.

Although I've been trained to hate myself, I've learned to believe it. "I don't want to talk about it," I utter in an undertone, refusing to allow my self-loathing to directly seep through my words.

He embraces me as though this embrace will be our last. "One day," he reminds me as a fresh flurry of petals spring up through my chest. "You better keep that damn promise. I want you to get better, and I want to help you get better. Don't be such an ass to yourself all the time. When you do that, you're also bein' an ass to me. So—"

Abruptly ripping myself free from our sweet, warm, idyllic hold of intimate bliss, I wrestle myself to the floor and swiftly stumble towards the bathroom. Failing to suppress the entirety of my coughs, I cover my mouth with my hand to prevent any petals or blood from littering the ground.

After disgorging the army of yellow petals from my system, I gasp perfervidly for air. Each breath that slinks down to fill the vacuity of my lungs, however, feels as though I'm gulping down barbed wire. With breaths trimmed in maximum duration, I only agitate my stomach with the heaving of my chest.

Bakugou now thumps his knuckles against the door. "Oi. You all right? You sound like sh*t."

I never would have guessed. "Fine," I pant, clearing my throat and soon realizing that I'm swallowing another petal slicked over with blood. I feel like throwing up.

Dragging my enfeebled body up to sit up against the wall, I attempt to steady my breaths again. Collecting my thoughts and gliding above the transparent barrier separating sky and galaxy from terra firma, I close my eyes into the gateway of a vast, lucid serenity. While slipping through this ethereal gateway, however, I'm met with tenebrous turbulence from the vexatious opposers of soaring beyond the barrier. A sullen smog mulls over my vision, polishing it with clarity by the authoritative injunction from Reality's subordinates. Squinting through to the hazy, sublime glade cut out from the surrounding shrubs of shadow, I transiently tuck in my immaculate wings and dive upwards towards my destination. Swerving through wretched brambles of crystalline charcoal, I reach for the murky mirage of light...to simply collide horrifically with a thick, undulating tree. Now deprived of my means of transportation and propulsion through sky, I plummet down to the groping henchmen sent out by Reality.

"Bakugou?" I ask while still ensnared by the daze of my mind clashing with reality.

No response.

A pin of trepidation impales my chest. "Bakugou?" I ask once more, shuffling to my feet and washing my hands at the sink.

Hustling out of the bathroom with choppy, wide steps, I scour the hallway and eventually the floor for Bakugou, but much to my dismay, I am unable to locate him. With palms uncomfortably warm and sticky, I reach for my phone to text him, but as my fingers curl around it, I dither before deciding against it.

I would simply be a burden. I don't deserve him as it is. Even so, this piques my curiosity. I never realized how much of an attachment I have to him. Is that what love feels like? I would prefer not to pine over anyone or grow this attached. What a paltry emotion widely viewed as lovely. Hm. Odd. I would not kn—

My thoughts are dismantled as Bakugou steps inside from the porch with a large bag in his hands. "What...happened?" I question, visibly bemused as my heart begins to drum as though it's a dog's jovial tail thumping on the ground.

Bakugou motions for me to follow him to my dining room. "What do you mean 'what happened?' You forget what I was doing?" He places the bag on the kotatsu and hands me a bowl of soba and a packet of sauce.

"I don't remember anything after you knocked on the door," I sigh, internally rebuking my forgetfulness and overall vanity.

"I said I was gonna order the food since you sounded like sh*t. Turns out that sh*tty Hair was the one delivering the food." He takes a bite out of his curry that I assume to be hot and spicy—how disgusting. "He talked my leg off. Damn fool." He shakes his head.

Kirishima... "Pardon my asking, but are the two of you in a relationship?" With an insouciant stare, I await his response.

"Well, sh*t. If you knew, then we were probably obvious. Dammit. Yeah, we were. Not anymore, but we were." He rubs the back of his neck. "You're not hom*ophobic, are you?"

I shake my head. "I think I might prefer a guy to be my partner, if I am ever to have one," I answer while staring down at my untouched soba. "I don't see the point of love."

He blinks a few times as if to assure himself that he heard me properly. "Oh, really? Good to know. Oi. Eat. The point of love? Couldn't tell ya. Thought I knew when I was with Kiri, but turns out that I knew f*cking nothing. Tch." His grip tightens around his chopsticks. "I don't know anymore. I hate that I don't know when I thought I did. I'm so damn confused."

I thought I knew what it was like to feel sad, but it turns out that I was incredibly wrong. "Ah. I see. I might...eat later. I don't feel well." My stomach lurches simply thinking about ingesting anything right now.

"Take a few bites and you can be done for now, 'kay?" He nods his head at me. "If that asshole comes back and you have to train, you're going to regret not eating. Why haven't you been feeling like eating?"

"The p—" I stop myself before I can utter 'petals' to Bakugou. "The putrid blood that I occasionally swallow." Given that this is in fact a truthful constituent to the whole, I would say this will suffice.

Bakugou's brows are tugged downwards. "Blood? From what?" he demands in a gruff, ferocious growl.

Only Yaoyorozu knew, yet my memory has once again failed me. "I guess I forgot to say that I've been coughing up blood," I remark nonchalantly.

He contorts his expression awry. "You've been coughing up blood and you didn't think to tell me?" he snarls, pressing his fist into the surface of the kotatsu. "That's why you've been leaving to go hack up a storm? sh*t! Then, really, what the f*ck is wrong with you?"

Quite a bit, but I needn't expatiate all that. "I'll be fine." Plucking a small clump of the phenomenal gift to mankind known as soba, I can only hope that my body won't reject it. "It isn't contagious. It has stages, it seems. It should get exponentially worse before clearing up." Tasting the sensational taste of soba that I cherish, I ask myself again why it is that I usually don't feel like eating; my stomach hastily answers my query.

"Oh. My. f*cking. God." His palms quiver with ire. "Now I really want to punch the sh*t out of that jackass! For f*ck's sake... Stages? Where are you on the scale, then?"

"On the scale? I haven't been weighed in a while."

"Not that kind of... I'm going f*cking insane. What stage are you in out of how many stages?" His fingers furiously curl inwards and outwards.

Recovery Girl had been providing more details about my disease to me while in the infirmary with Yaoyorozu. "Typically, the stages go as follows: by the first month, the developing petals must be expelled from the lungs; there are some cases where blood falls before the petals. During the first month, there will be more, larger petals. During the second month, the petals thicken and clump together, and there will often be leaves. For the cases including blood as one of the side effects, it isn't uncommon to suffer from daily nausea. During the third month, the flowers will have partially bloomed, and there are rare cases when the plant spreads to the stomach; this causes occasional vomiting of petals and developing flowers. During the fourth month, the flowers are fully developed, and either surgery or finding a way to have requited love is imperative. If neither occur, then the disease leads to death—usually by the fifth or sixth month."

"The second stage out of four or so," I reply without any emotion leaking from my words.

Bakugou clamps his eyes shut and deeply inhales before exhaling. "And you're telling me it's supposed to get exponentially worse?" I nod. "Halfway through and it's supposed to hit you like hell in the form of a truck on the goddamn highway... sh*t, and he's coming back. You better not f*cking die on me. You die and there's gonna be hell to pay." Vivid snaps of tangerine ignite from the palms of his hands.

"Yeah..."

Later that afternoon, my phone vibrates persistently from my pocket. Pulling my phone free, Endeavor's name defiles my eyes. Sliding off of my futon from beside Bakugou, I promptly exit my room and accept the call from Endeavor as a blistering air of foreboding rattles my veins. Holding my phone to my ear and swiftly shooting down the volume, I head outside.

"Shoto," states a glacial voice acting as the blade to pry open the lid to my jar of memories.

You haven't uttered my name in quite some time. "Yes?" I reply with my conventional indifference, tamping down my stomach-churning disquietude.

"I will return in a matter of hours," he informs me with an eerily anomalous placidity to his words. "I have an abundance of things for us to discuss then. Have you been continuing to train?"

This relentless terror sickens me. "Yes." Occasionally.

"As expected of you." 'You.' "I need you to do something."

"Yes?"

"Dispose of all the alcohol in the house but one bottle," he commands, much to my absolute stupefaction.

Have you found a new brand in America superior to those offered in Japan, and therefore the current bottles you own are obsolete? "Yes," I sigh, not bothering to question his automatically unequivocal reasoning.

Silence envelopes the air for a few seconds. "Thank you, Shoto. I will see you in a few hours." He now ends the call.

What...the f*ck? No. I refuse to believe it. I have fallen prey to your abominable, designing machinations for far too long. How cruel of me. When I cannot determine whether or not your thoughts and judgment have been clouded by alcohol, I can believe nothing. Even if you are sober, everything can be shattered like glass when you're drunk. And I...refuse to allow myself to break like those bottles you enjoy torturing me with by deceiving myself with the thought that your words will remain true through and through. You might be my father, but I cannot trust you. I cannot trust that you are not simply endeavoring to gain my trust to force me into bed with you. Absolutely repulsive.

Fighting back the stirring in my stomach from springing up, I return to my room with shivering skin. "He'll be here in a few hours," I begrudgingly whisper, clutching my twisting stomach. "I'll return shortly." Heading down into the kitchen, I begin scouring for all the bottles of alcohol Endeavor purchased.

It's as though my stomach is a blender unable to be turned off, I think to myself while retrieving another few bottles of alcohol and setting them on the ground. I don't think I can endure the emotional damage if he harasses me like that again. I—

My hand flails through the air as a bottle of champagne slips through my fingers. A familiar crash of glass shattering on the floor triggers another onslaught of my memories to lunge for me.

sh*t.

Chapter 6: "What am I to you?"

Chapter Text

As a reminder, this fic is not intended to promote or encourage its dark/sensitive themes (such as sexual assault, pedophilia, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, abuse, or substance abuse). I do not condone sexual harassment or assault of any kind.

"Worthless f*ck-up." Slamming a bottle of beer against the wall, Endeavor picked up a large, jagged shard of the shattered bottle remnants and pinned me down to the floor in a position as if to use me for his own sexual desires. "I'll brand it with the marking of its master."

The reek of alcohol serves as a punch to my stomach while I bend down to gather the shards of glass. Glancing down at the liquid pool on the floor, I consider using my left half to evaporate the fluid, but I lambaste myself when I remember that it's alcohol. Now on my knees before the lake of fetid alcohol with glass strewn across it, I grasp the shards tinted in a translucent brown.

My sweltering head and frigid palms were both cold to the touch as Endeavor ran his hand across my forehead and through my hair. With a sad*stic sneer, he rolled up my left sleeve and turned my body so that my stomach was to the floor. I stared at the shadows beneath me while my pulsating temples burned in anticipation of glass puncturing my skin. The tip of a glass fragment bit into my flesh and was slowly yet malevolently dragged across the back of my shoulder to form a line. I bit back the instinctive screams threatening to erupt from my mouth as the glass continued to scorch my skin.

Tears prick my eyes as a shard of glass slices cleanly through my right ring finger. I want to drag this glass across my own skin. Not like he did. No... I just want to hurt myself as a reminder of how disgustingly worthless I am. Curling back my lips, I precipitously clench my fist holding the glass shards; a multiplicity of familiar needles of flame pierce through my palm and fingers. Worthless. Failure. Disappointment. Thing. It. It doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. I don't matter. Foolish. 'The thing that destroyed my life, my family, and my reputation.' My tears finally wriggle through my unfazed facade and slide down my cheeks as I relax my left fist—the one with the glass shards.

After struggling through the agony of the letter E being carved at a painstakingly slow pace into my shoulder and squirming haplessly as the open wounds were drawn over again and again with the same glass shard, Endeavor finally dropped the sharp object from his hand. The jaundiced sound of glass being rustled, however, instantaneously captured my trepidatious attention. Biting my tongue, I was soon met with glass transfixing my skin in one single point. Jamming deeper and deeper still, that sturdy fragment began to twist in a circle as it was driven down through my flesh like a screw.

Staring down at my quivering hand stained with blood and lacerations with translucent shards protruding from my skin, I continue to pluck more shards from the floor. Now gagging at the volatile assailant to my nose and stomach, I slam my fingers into the glass shards again. I repeatedly wrench my fist open and closed on those glass shards, ignoring the pain that flares up with each time I perform this. Expelling a forlorn sob from my throat, I clamp down my fingers on the glass and apply as much pressure as I can muster up as if to crush the shards.

"OI!" vociferates a harrow-stricken voice.

Once the abject torture concluded, I returned to my room with a glass shard still reeking of Endeavor's anathematizing alcohol. Whining as I felt around the obtrusive lines that reflected the marking of Endeavor, I scribbled my own cuts across it to conceal the fact that it had originally been a letter. Glancing into the mirror behind my shoulder to view my wounds, I grimaced with a throaty growl as I began cleaning them up.

My wrists are held fast by Bakugou's hands. "What the f*ck are you doing?!" I shakily struggle against him, pushing my arms in a half-assed attempt to negate his pull. "Stop. Stop, goddammit!" Meekly obeying his command, I limply hang my head as my splenetic tears drip down to the floor.

Even though you hurt me, I deserve it. Even though I hate it when you hurt me, I still deserve it. I haven't begged for you to stop since I was young. I learned to accept that I'm not... That all I am is something for you to abuse. That's what I deserve. I... It was my fault. I asked for this. I didn't stop you. I will be just fine. Hurt me until you're jaded. I was the one and am currently the one preventing you from being happy. If hurting me makes you feel good, then keep hurting me. It deserves it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It will be fine. It hurts so much. It burns like the flames of hell. But it also feels good—it feels something that isn't this perpetual void of nothingness or livid sorrow—when it hurts the me that it wishes to tear apart to escape from. It'll be fine.

I wish...I could tear apart my heart with these shards of glass. Yet I fear when someone else might do the same. Fear? Is it truly? I don't know. I wouldn't know. Of course I don't know. Bakugou...

Dragging me back from the putrid pool of alcohol with my wrists restrained, Bakugou seethingly snarls, "Open your fist." The lachrymal shivers razing his voice augment my instability from weeping.

"Why?" I sniff, failing miserably to prevent my facade from falling.

His shoulders hug against mine as he lays down his chin on my shoulder. "Because there's f*cking..." He expels a swift breath through his lips. "Todoroki. Because I'm asking you to."

Even so... "Why are you a-asking me to?" I sob, mortified by the fact that Bakugou must certainly be feeling the horrific tremors snaking across my body and my intermittent breaths.

After a moment, he releases a dismal sigh. "Your hand is bleeding," he remarks with his pristine composure inviolate.

"And?" I swiftly press, refractory as ever as my fist continues to shake.

"There's f*cking glass poking out from and between your fingers," he grumbles assertively. "Don't you dare say 'and?' to me again. I care about you, dammit. I'm not a complete heartless dick. I have emotions, and so do you—even if you act like you don't. I care about you, Todoroki. How many times do I need to say that to burn it into your damn head? Your health is part of you, and therefore I care about that, too. You're destroying your f*ckin' health when you cut it with glass. That ain't gonna fly. Now, let go." Having spoken the spiel of his thoughts, he snorts, evincing what I can only assume is quelled vexation.

Then...I don't want you to care about me. "Why?" I question, flinching at the hitch in my uncharitable voice. "Why do y-you care?" My words exude a malicious frost as literal frost begins to crawl across my skin from my right half.

Ameliorate the masks immediately, I internally command myself with domineering authority. Suppress the pain. It doesn't matter. Your puerile insolence shan't be tolerated. It is your choice to choose how you feel. Why can't you feel anything beneficial to those who care? No matter what I feel, it hurts without any tangible trace. This glass in my hand...helps me forget about how I feel inside. It makes me feel something different. It makes me feel better.

"You're my friend." Friend. "Friends care about each other—it ain't truthful friendship, otherwise. Todoroki, I care about you so f*cking much that I'm willing to tell you all this. You told me yourself that you wouldn't have believed me to be this kind of person. I hate showing this side of myself, but I'm not a f*cking coward—I'll show it when it's necessary, even if I hate it. Yeah, I always show it around you. Why? Because I care, and it's f*cking necessary. You think screaming at you and telling you to die and burn in hell like I do to everyone else is gonna help you? Hell no! So don't be looking down on me, either. Now, let go."

I can never win against you, can I? You always know what to say at the end of the day, and you articulate it well. You always seem to know what I'm thinking and what I'll say, and you concede and refute. You craft reasonable, succinct deals that favor my side, but your own ideals are still present in it. And your veracity is something I could only dream of.

Reluctantly releasing my crushing grip on the jagged teeth of a translucent brown, a few loose shards of glass fall from my fingers and into my palm. Streams of crimson trickle from my hand, twisting like snakes across my wrist and slithering across Bakugou's fingers.

As Bakugou releases his grip on my uninjured hand, he cautiously pulls me up to my feet. Guiding me through what feels like an intricate labyrinth of halls before we arrive at the kitchen sink mere feet away, he motions for me to sit on the floor. Hanging my head over my knees, I attempt to stifle my hushed sobs.

"I'll be back soon, 'kay? I'm getting some stuff to treat that," Bakugou announces, to which I nod my head at.

There are times I wish you could see how much I want to die and how much I want to slash through my skin with every passing second...just to stop the pain beneath my skin. Then, however, I remind myself that it would simply be a daft mistake to save me. Even so, I instinctively desire that help from somewhere beyond my own reach. But I don't deserve it. Even if I've numbed myself to being struck by serrated, malevolent words, it does not erase the memories of why such blades were thrown at me. It does not erase how...how he would touch me and call me 'a sh*tty toy anyone would get a kick out of using and throwing away.' All I am...

After vacantly staring down at the floor, listening to Bakugou's consoling comments, and threading myself in and out of the barrier of ground and sky, I finally fold my crystalline wings granting me ephemeral liberty, and I return to my place under Reality's command.

The crinkling of a package being opened greets my ears. Swiftly succeeding this is gauze being bound to my skin by bandages coiling around my hand like thread to a spool.

I finally lift my head, causing a rush of loose warmth to flood through my sore neck. "I'm sorry," I whisper, at last thawing the remnants of frost adhering to my skin beneath my sleeves.

Bakugou's ethereal garnet gaze lands on my eyes. "I'm not mad atcha," he maunders in a light growl. "Course, I wish you hadn't done that, but I'm not mad. I'm f*cking furious, but it isn't directed at you. Now, what the hell were you doing with the goddamn alcohol?" He releases my hand and helps me up to my feet again.

Then who or what are you furious with? "Thank you—for everything. I don't..." I don't deserve you. "Ah. Endeavor ordered me to dispose of the alcohol. He likely brought more from America. You looked busy."

"Are you sh*tting me? f*ck that asshole." He runs his hand through his glorious, pluming hair of ash-blonde. "Don't be so damn shy. The hell could I possibly have been busy with that was more important than you?" He mutters something under his breath as his hand creeps over his mouth; splotches of a pale pink dust his cheeks. "Just come and get me. You're not a burden. Don't torture yourself like this, dammit."

How adorable. "I'll consider it," I sigh aridly, clearing my throat and swallowing down a few petals dappled with blood. I need to eat.

"You know, you can show your emotions. I know you have them. I might tease you about being emotionless, but you've probably felt it all to hell and back. You probably don't want to feel all you've felt before. I'm sure that was all filtered down to disparaging feelings. Bet you figure it'd be easier not to deal with any of that, huh? Don't torpefy yourself like that. Sure, some suppression is good when the situation calls for it, but completely repressing... That doesn't counterpoise the pain, necessarily."

I don't like expressing emotion. I don't like feeling emotion. I don't like detecting the emotions of others.

His eyes roll towards my left arm. "It's gotta hurt to feel when I'm sure you haven't been happy in a long time. Guess you could say we're opposites, in that regard. I explode when I can't handle my emotions, but I end up degrading the people around me. You implode, and you take it all out on yourself. Doesn't mean we don't both cross paths, but..." He languidly grasps my left sleeve, and I comply without speaking. "I know these—or, at least most—aren't from that sack of sh*t. I found out a while ago, but I'm sick of keeping to myself. But you weren't in pain when I touched your arm earlier." He slips my sleeve up towards my shoulder.

Clever. Damn. "How did you know?" I question, reserving my aloofness.

He shakes his head, scrutinizing the scars littering my arm. "God. f*ck. How deep did this one go? Holy sh*t..." He presses his palm to his forehead. "How did I know? I knew you hated yourself. I knew you were probably struggling with depression. I knew and I know...you probably think about committing suicide a lot, yeah?"

Guilt drills down into my chest hearing that Bakugou knew what I'd scrupulously worked to conceal, but I neither confirm nor deny his self-ascertained suspicions. An agonizing twinge shoots through my head as though boiling water has been shot through my temples. The effervescent snapping of my heart ignites firecrackers through my skull while an intrusive film of white entangles itself with my vision.

You would not be wrong, but I digress. Bakugou, you have been aware of all this? I must be such a fool for such paltry attempts at shielding such a reprehensible truth from him.

"Why the hell do you think I ask you how you're doing every day? How your day is? That I'll see you tomorrow? I didn't want to confront you—I didn't want to break you. Every time I thought I'd mustered up the confidence, I could never do it. Even though I knew about your self-abasing ways before I saw the hole in your arm, I didn't think a whole lot about it. Wish I had. Wish I f*cking had... Then I learned more about you, the abuse, why you always ate a feast at lunch... We were nowhere near friends yet, but there was no way in hell I wanted you to go off and hurt yourself, end up starving under him, or...kill yourself. I've never worked my ass off more for f*cking friendship in my entire life." He sighs. "I should've just opened my goddamn mouth sooner. Maybe I could've..."

Bakugou... "If I could ask anything of you, I would request that you refrain from falling into the same hole as I have," I utter with a gelid blight wedging into my words.

He releases a groan of exasperation. "There you go—all formal again. Y'know, it makes me feel like sh*t to know your words get through to me, but regardless of how damn much I try to get mine through to you, they don't. But I get what I want at one point or another. I will beat f*cking Deku. I will be the best. I will get through to you. Tch. C'mon, don't look at me with that blank-ass stare." My stomach growls, and Bakugou crosses his arms at this. "Your stomach sounds like a cat. Hungry?"

"Yeah. Sorry. I haven't felt like eating."

Everything I do feels like a burden. It's been increasingly difficult to force myself from my futon in the mornings. Even though my stomach is furious since I've not been eating, all the blood and petals I've been swallowing cause only nausea.

Bakugou offers an uplifting scoff at the next protest from my stomach. "Time for you to man up and eat, then. Damn you, Kiri. You look a bit thinner. I better not have to see your skinny ass sitting at the bottom of the scale again, 'kay? You looked like absolute sh*t. I don't wanna know the hell you went through from him, but I also do to strengthen my resolve to beat his ass. Tch. I'll shut my damn trap and let you eat. I'll take care of the alcohol. My old hag would probably like it." He smirks like a sly, snickering fox.

What a radiant smile, I think to myself, enamored by Bakugou's striking expression. Why is such an intoxicatingly beautiful smile a knife through the chest?

Although initially rather abstemious, I find myself forcing down the remainder of my soba to recoup from my debilitating lack of eating. Perhaps extraordinarily axiomatic, but I feel atrocious afterwards. Now my stomach snarls not from hunger, but a long-surpassed, surfeited fullness.

"You weren't kidding," Bakugou comments once I've regretfully consumed my meal. "At least it's in you now. Tch. Better stay that way. Now, remind me when that asshole's supposed to get here." His somewhat exuberant smirk fades into a rancorous lour.

Biting my lip, I shrug with my eyes. "Relatively soon? What plan did you have in mind for when he arrives?" I shake my head at my trembling hands and wince at my bandaged hand.

Standing from the kotatsu, Bakugou scoops up both of our dishes. "Lurking in the shadows and waiting to see if I should go in for the killing strike on that poor excuse for a dad." Fury sizzles up from his words as his back turns to me.

Why do you torture yourself with this relentless concern over me? "Stay in my room. If you hear anything concerning, then lurk in the shadows," I propose as my offer.

I can think of a much more efficient method than this, but he would be able to hear everything. I want to eliminate that possibility as much as possible. I feel light-headed simply considering that Endeavor will be returning shortly. How irksome.

"Why not a closer room?"

My fingers glide across my arm. "I can't guarantee where he'll go, but he hasn't entered my room in years," I sigh.

The clunks and clinks of dishes rattling in the sink fill the air. "Fine. The minute I sense something amiss, his ass will be the trophy I earn and throw out." 'A sh*tty toy anyone would get a kick out of using and throwing away.' "I don't care if he's the top Hero. Nothing gives him the right to do any of what he's done. Nothing, dammit."

Would we not be greater fools for abusing the abuser? Endeavor is still human. He too feels pain.

The crackling itch of flower petals entwined with strands of blood flitting through my lungs stirs through my being. Rising from the floor in an impetuous response to this, I swiftly excuse myself for the bathroom.

A shower of saffron and vermillion drizzle in spurts from my mouth and into the maw of the toilet below. Considering now that Endeavor will likely hold a training session as his gift to me, I stare down at my right hand.

I have been clean for over two years, I cogitate, spreading out my fingers a bit. Even so, I can imagine that his training would be especially strenuous tonight. I will likely be left incapacitated on the floor. Even after I could endure the punches and kicks, I was still terrified. Then I realized that I did not wish to break my reputation regarding that. It was never terribly often, and in fact quite seldom I'd stoop as low as that. The instances of capitulating to it gradually declined over the years. I trained myself to erase the possibility to the best of my abilities, and thus began the construction of my reputation. Even so... I truly am disgusting.

Despite the inveighs drowning my mind in order to maintain my immaculate record known only to me, I cannot resist the enticing urge to purge again. With a sigh in self-reproach, I split my lips apart and steel myself for the imminent revulsion that will arise from my actions. Digging the fingers of my right hand down into my throat, I begin the familiar process of gagging and sporadically forcing my fingers further down from my head jerking about. From my gag reflex alone, I achieve disgorging stomach acid, but after enough poking around with my warm, slimy fingers, I finally vomit everything up while my stomach heaves; the blistering, acerbic flood of my stomach contents burns my sore throat while I do so.

Just as unpleasant as I remember. It felt like I was suffocating for thirty minutes or so, even if it was much shorter than that. My head and eyes are still in a daze. I feel filthy. I feel disgusting. I feel guilty. But I feel better. Even when I retch up blood, petals, and anything in my stomach, I still cannot void myself of the pain. Ah. Damn. They aren't too prominent.

Once I finish washing away the remnants of my revolting ways, I return to the kitchen to see that no longer on the floor remains glass or alcohol. The light bobbing of a precipitous forest of a sandy blonde poking over the nearby counter seizes my attention.

"Bakugou?" I ask with quite the raspy voice.

His eyes and nose lift up above the bend of the counter. "Damn straight it's me. How f*cking hard were you coughing?" Now his waist and below are cut off by the counter.

My eyes drift to my right hand. "I'm fine. What are you doing?" I tilt my head as though I had not been shoving my fingers down my throat not long ago.

"I smell bullsh*t," he scoffs. "But I knew he had to be keeping a secret stash somewhere. Scoured high and low for something. Nothing gets past Katsuki Bakugou." He sneers avidly.

I love his expressions... "I see. Congratulations," I state with exanimate vigor.

"f*ck you and your deadass voice."

A melancholic smile ghosts my tingling lips. "How sweet."

It hurts beneath the surface not simply from... I don't want to remember doing that. My chest aches around you. Your magnificent smile brings me warmth, but it hurts. Your imperial eyes are so comforting, but when I see myself in them, I feel empty. Your voice of placating grandeur embraces me, but I feel alone.

His sneer contorts into a muddled expression tinged in an undertone of cherry. "You asshole," he grumbles.

While the two of us rest up against each other while watching a show featuring a dark-haired protagonist with a love for katsudon and a passion for ice skating, the whirring of a vehicle near the house practically halts my heart before injecting it with a perfervid spark.

"Tch. Here comes the biggest ass I've ever seen," Bakugou acrimoniously remarks, pulling himself up from beside me. "He does anything you ain't comfortable with, you make sure I hear it. I will be pissed if you don't. Don't try lying to me." The austerity of his blazing eyes is rather lackluster compared to Endeavor, but for Bakugou, it's quite the spectacle.

Switching off the television, I apprehensively pace back and forth while scratching my arm before slinking out of view from the front windows. Compose yourself, I fiercely command myself. Calm down. Regain your composure. It is nothing you have not been previously exposed to. Do you not recall the inanity of emotion? Reprimand them. As it is, your naïveté will loosen them. Fetter them down. Exhaling slowly, I fasten my gelid, forbidding mask of titanium to my mien as a soft, hissing, scraping creak of the front door sliding open greets my ears.

"Shoto," calls an aloof, seemingly sober Endeavor. "Come here."

Obey. Gulping down a scorching, dry breath, I walk out to face the Flame 'Hero' himself with my hands in my pockets. "You called?" I sigh without emotion, peering up into two eyes of jade stained with blue.

Endeavor, rather than crossing his arms with cold, crass, murky eyes, he simply stares down at me with a certain solemnity and sober softness to his eyes. "I must apologize to you, Shoto," he sighs, thoroughly bemusing me as he bows to me; a disconcerting twinge of flame whips through my chest. "What I have done is unthinkable. Although I cannot recall the majority of what I've done, I still remember enough to pronounce my actions as abhorrent. I am ashamed, Shoto. Say what you wish to me."

I still can't trust your words. "I have nothing to say to you," I reply, restrained by no emotion.

"I remember...engraving a symbol of some sort on your shoulder."

"Don't touch me." I instinctively draw my hands from my pockets, primed to clasp onto any groping hands.

He notices the bandages wrapped around my left hand. "What happened to your hand?" he questions. In his voice, something wavers.

"It doesn't concern you," I spit.

His brows lower slightly. "You are my son. Your injuries are my concern." What bullsh*t. "You're thinner."

The fingers of my right hand curl inwards. "I'd say you're delusional. If it's the case that I'm thinner, then this is what you insinuated that you wanted." I shake my head.

"My judgment and reasoning were impaired. I have been sober all day for you. I understand that no words will suffice as a proper apology. No words can serve as atonement for my wrongs. No words can mend the wounds I've left. But I need you, Shoto, to understand that I recognize that. When I went to America, I was required to remain sober more often than not. That clarity... I had the time to reflect on what I could recollect from my heinous decisions while I was intoxicated. I'm sorry, Shoto."

I want so badly to believe you. I want to trust you. But I can't. I just can't. Not yet. I'm not ready for that. My heart hurts. I am fully prepared to be stabbed in the back for trusting your words, but I can never truly prepare myself enough. I would prefer to have anticipated those words to be crushed on the ground and remain detached from any connections to you. I'm sorry as well. Endeavor...I don't know who you are anymore. Anymore? I've forgotten who you truly are for quite some time. I tell myself you do mean well, but now I am extraordinarily dubious of my own initial thoughts. What do I believe?

I shake my head. "Your apology is something I'll have to think about for myself," I mutter, flicking my eyes to the floor to mask the softening steeliness of my eyes.

If you were truly sorry, would you not... No. It doesn't matter. I don't matter. None of it matters.

"Did you do as I asked you to?"

"Yes," I hastily sibilate.

"Good. Then let us train. I will let you be the judge of when to stop," he states while heading up to the training room.

I highly doubt my lungs will sanction the use of the full extent of my abilities. I am the judge, though? Although I am inclined to simply opt out, I must continue to maintain my strength. Ah. I suppose I have nothing to throw up now, but that was the motive that drove me to do that. I still feel guilty. Bakugou would never forgive me if he were to unravel this recondite facet of mine.

Somberly entering the training room, I shed my sweatshirt and leave my long-sleeved shirt on. Endeavor implies that I should remove my shirt as well, but the idea of being alone with the one who is culpable for sexually harassing me is disconcerting enough. Even when his eyes are understanding and his hands are at his sides, I still see the shadows of his salacious eyes staring between my legs and his creeping hands stroking what he saw.

"Don't touch my waist," I fulminate begrudgingly.

Endeavor nods. "What happened?" He crosses his arms in thought.

You...appalled me beyond anything I thought was humanly possible. "It doesn't matter." Yet I allowed you to play with me until you were on the verge of stripping me.

"Am I to blame for this?"

"Yes," I sigh with blatant vitriol being emanated from my glacial words. "You've done much worse." I covertly wince.

I can feel Endeavor's scorching eyes staring at me, and I look up to see bewilderment in his turquoise eyes with an unprecedented malleability. "Such as?" Although his words are sturdy, his lilt is askew.

If I had not purged everything, I may as well have voided it all here and now. "You..." I clutch my stomach as a grimace tears apart my insouciance. "You don't remember any of it?"

"I remember holding you, holding your hand, staring at you, and pulling at your shirt," he admits, unable to meet my eyes. "But I see I've done much worse. Shoto, I am sorry. Again, my words can't reverse what I've done, but I'm sorry. Whatever it is that I have also done is inexcusable." In his eyes flickers what appears to be guilt.

You've forgotten the fact that... That... "Enough," I scoff disdainfully. "What am I to you?" A toy you can spew empty apologies at?

His eyes meet mine. "You are my son, Shoto."

"Prove that without words."

A leaden silence ensues.

As I thought. You would be a fool to prove this through blood and whatnot. So, I will wait until you can prove that to me without any puerile words. Anyone can say 'you are my son, Shoto,' and therefore such a statement is futile. What am I to you, Endeavor?

As expected, in the midst of the training session, I throw in the towel when my knees buckle and I hack up blood with only one or two petals present in the mix. Rolling up a bit of my left sleeve merely to create a gap large enough to concentrate my flames on and expel a swift wave of fire that burns away the yellow petals. Swiftly returning my sleeve to its neutral position, I stagger to my feet.

A hand grasps my shoulder and turns my body around, but I expeditiously react with an ice-infused punch and a razing glacier of serrated ice. "Don't touch me!" I pant simultaneously out of terror and rage while attempting to silence the raging tumult reverberating in my mind and suppressing the entropy of my frantic emotions.

Fearful frost clings to my skin and seeps into my clothing from my right half as I finally wheel around fully with my fist mantled with ice after sending Endeavor reeling back. My azure stallion formed by a preponderance of ice spears jutting into the air slams heavily into Endeavor, who is currently flaring up with threads of fire. A rippling stream of refulgent orange flames is sundered upon seeping up into and shattering my small-scale beast of ice.

"Sorry..." I apologize, evoking acute self-abasem*nt from my habitual apology.

Dismayed and debilitated, I contemplate lending Endeavor my hand before such an idea is struck down by my persona that is blasé about anything daring to scathe it. Departing from the training room, I'm soon met with a fuming Bakugou, but I rapidly shake my head.

"Go back." I mouth, flicking my left wrist and swiping my fingers to their peaks at him; while in the process of doing this, I bite my tongue in regret.

Hobbling into the kitchen, I wash off the blood staining my hand and fetch myself a glass of water. Steadily drinking down the water in the glass, I once again feel like vomiting, so I hover over the sink for a minute or so. When nothing comes back up, I sigh in relief and return to my room to find Bakugou with a wry, sulking scowl.

"The f*ck did he do?" he demands, his authority unequivocal.

As splendid as it is to have you here at my side at almost all times, I do still wish that I could convince you to leave me be. "Nothing. I overreacted," I murmur, sinking down into solitude.

He lets loose a piqued sigh. "You don't gotta keep up the act."

It would be phenomenal if this act became the truth. "I see." I glance between my hands. "You should be getting home."

"Oh, sh*t. The hag's gonna beat my ass if I don't tell her why I've been out. Tch." He whips out his phone and begins tapping away at the screen. "I will. Soon. Just wanna make sure he ain't comin' back for round two or some sh*t." He scratches the back of his head and glances up at me from sitting on my futon; his somewhat arrogant half-smile falls away. "Your body language gives the impression that you don't feel anything, but your eyes look pretty damn sad."

I press my left hand to my left eye. "I suppose. I don't know... I don't know how I feel." I lean back against the wall and eventually settle on the floor.

"And that's perfectly fine, Todoroki," he assures me, hopping off of my futon and sitting beside me. "Don't be beating yourself up, got it? Talk to me about it. Don't bottle it up." He turns to face me.

Bakugou begins to wrap his arm around me, and although my first thought is of the alleviating warmth it provides, my mind yields to my impulses. Batting away his arm and leaning away, I disconsolately mutter, "Not now. I want...to be left alone." Staring vacantly at the floor, I sigh deeply at my incertitude and balkiness.

I can hear a soft snort from him. "You want me to just leave you here when you sound f*cking dead inside? Not happening. Not right now, at least." He pauses for a moment. "Your mood's been all over the damn place today. Just tell me something bad that happened today that I don't already know of."

What am I to you, Bakugou? "I'm tired. I don't know."

Am I the friend of yours with such a poor image of himself that you pity him? Is that it? You could argue that this is quite the incentive to accept help and work to recover, or you could argue that this simply necessitates my desire to distance myself. Even so, even though I know a plethora of things that happened today, nothing I think of can I speak. Everything falls apart. I don't have the motivation to pick up the pieces and form the whole again. I'm tired of feeling like this. I can't describe it well. It feels as though I feel nothing at all, yet the air is peppered with an attenuating guilt of sorts. I don't know.

He sighs. "I think you do know, Todoroki. I won't push it this time. But, oi. Look me in the eyes, Icyhot. Unless you think the floor's superior to me. I wantcha to tell me one thing that was hard about your day, and one thing that was good about it from now on. Got that? Good. I care about you a whole f*ckin' lot. Don't be looking down on me like that damn nerd, though." With a forward sway, he gets up to his feet. "See you tomorrow, Todoroki. If he does anything, I expect you to tell me, 'kay?"

Right... I nod stiffly. I do not plan to be extricated from my own predicaments. I will face them myself. I don't need your hand. Even if I want it, I shouldn't take it. I've caused enough harm to you as it is. Such a pernicious ignoramus should have no right to cause...

Drawing myself up from the floor, I catch a glimpse at Bakugou's backpack slipping away into the darkness outside my window. With flickering snaps of tangerine, I can hear a faint thump from him landing on the ground. Walking towards the window, I peer down into the abyss of shadow tinged faintly with the saffron emanation leaking from the glass windows of the house. Sighing as the silhouette below slinks away towards the street, I deeply inhale the fresh, dampened air. Although I'd failed to notice it previously, a deluge of water droplets have been hammering the roof for the past thirty minutes or so.

After shutting fast my window, I force myself to exit my room and surreptitiously slink away to the back deck. Stepping outside into the chilly, wet night of a reposeful storm of belligerent tacks from the rain, I stare up at the sky. Tenebrous smudges of charcoal clouds blot out the majority of the stars strung up beyond their reach. Rusted ribbons of silver stream faintly along the crests of dark-gray cotton. From the wispy hands of the clouds slip tapered teardrops that slick over the ground and rend upon spilling across my skin, hair, and clothing.

What a pleasant feeling, I think while closing my eyes and feeling as the tendrils of the cool liquid raining down caresses my face. Even though it feels nice to be warm inside, it also feels nice to be cold on the outside. I will have only so many more moments available to bask in his warmth. Two or three months to live... One's dream is another's nightmare.

A familiar gurgle severs the tranquility of the rainy night. I needn't be reminded. I can feel as my stomach practically gnaws at itself. I am very hungry, but I've begun to feel sick whenever I eat. Consuming abnormal amounts of blood every day must certainly contribute to this. Even so... They are correct. This shirt once hugged my skin somewhat tightly, but I can tell that, comparatively, the sleeves are a bit loose. Ah. Damn. Then... Before my condition degrades to the denouement, it is of paramount significance that I force down all that I can. Does he believe me to be anorexic? He did question my body image. I do still eat, but it makes me sick. Although I am guilty of purging, that is to preclude the event of expelling everything while training so that I cannot be punished or humiliated for it. Regardless of the numbers on the scale or my overall width, I will still abhor what I see, however. With or without the scars, I will still cringe seeing my skin. I cannot remove or change the person inside me. Person? Thing? Object? Toy?

Shaking my head, my hair leaden with water slaps my forehead and eyes. While sighing, the sound of the sliding door opening nearly causes me to choke on my breath. Despite my perturbed state, I keep my eyes on the sky.

A sickening, potent smog of a familiar scent wafts towards me. Alcohol. Following the odious odor is the thump of drunken steps. No. Before long, a dusty, dirty voice perforates my ears.

"Shoto..." hums a depraved Endeavor.

He'll beat me if I disobey, unlike when he's sober. "Yes?" I gulp, petrified by the hand now gripping my damp shoulder.

A filthy hand glides across my lower back and wraps around my waist slicked over with a light residue from my water-stained shirt; I stiffen like a deer in the headlights at this intrusive sensation. "Come here," he whispers, dragging me back into his arms while my tumultuous heart bellows in my chest. "I've been looking forward to seeing you today. What did you do while I was away?" His body lightly sways as he holds me tight to his chest.

Perhaps a bit more than tipsy, are we? "Nothing important," I reply, managing to still the stutter threatening to drill into my voice.

The inside of my body blazes with a volatile bath of bitterness as Endeavor's fingers lightly creep around my clothing. My quivering fingers, however, are like icicles protruding from my flesh. With intermittent, dry breaths, I alternate between suppressing rapid hitches in the flow of the air coursing through me and gradually soothing the greediness of my oxygen intake.

I still can't trust you...but I want you to be happy. Just this once... While you still have partial control over yourself, perhaps this is all right. I will still exercise immense caution, but I cannot recall when last you might have sampled even the faintest hint of 'love.' Has anyone extended a hand to you? I would think not. I...revoked my hand. Fuyumi and Natsuo moved out and have not returned since. Mom is still bound by the walls of the hospital. I mutilate myself to mitigate the pain. Is it that, even while intoxicated, you still hurt? Is that why you beat me? Has loneliness and solitude sparked your abrupt desires to touch me? Is that it? I would like to believe that, but I don't know if I can. Just this once...

Hesitantly lifting my arms, my heart resounds as though it is currently undergoing construction as I lay my arms over Endeavor's. "What am I to you?" I ask him again while shifting my weight around on my feet.

The patter of the rain trampling the ground soothes the silence.

I can't forget the hell you've put me through. I will never forget any of it. It hurts. Your words cut so deeply into me that they now circulate through my blood to haunt me. Your abuse and salacity left countless scars on both my body and mind. Your drinking...was Fuyumi's last straw. I can't forgive you yet. Not yet. But...it's okay for me to become a Hero. Heroes save others with a smile. I never saw a trace of a smile on your lips after Touya's disappearance. I can still save you. Even Heroes need saving sometimes, I think.

"My trip to America was lonesome," he sighs with breaths reeking of alcohol. "I found you. I see your arms."

He forgot my question? Forgot... "Will you forget who I am?" I query solemnly.

I can feel his head shake left and right a bit. "Where did they disappear to?" Who, or wha—ah! "They are still there." His hand, nestled beneath my moist shirt, rests above my heart. "They belong to Shoto."

I'm not certain I comprehend. Ah! No. Stop. D-Don't touch...A soft, sharp gasp escapes my throat as Endeavor's fingers beneath my shirt clutch at my chest. I don't like this. But... His other hand is now recruited to massage the leftmost circular protrusion from my chest. I feel so filthy. I utterly detest this unwarranted touching. My guts are knitting and being kneaded. But I deserve it...don't I? Even if I want to vomit, I can endure it.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, but before I can instinctively utilize the serendipitous distraction to break free from Endeavor's wet, filthy fingers fondling me, he begins dragging me backwards towards the house. "Come here," he now commands with a subtle return of his familiar astringency.

Submit. With a flaccid resolve, I comply with Endeavor's command as he yanks me inside from the rain. Would Bakugou not lambaste my decision to submit?

Stumbling back with Endeavor, the rush of air and the increasing distance of everything in my line of sight alerts me with the fact that I'm falling. Too delayed is my reaction to my falling as my head slams into the floor with the rest of my body following suit. An immediate twinge of a pulsing pain darts through my skull as a nebulous haze razes my eyes. The careening screech of reality lancing through my torpefied senses that sound and feel as though they've been submerged in water gradually focuses my vision back into alignment.

The slurred, wildly warping details gleaming in the lenses of my vision are polished enough for me to make out a towering silhouette belonging to Endeavor. As my senses continue to thaw, I flinch at the sensation of a frigid, yet warm pair of hands wrapping around my neck.

"...utiful," Endeavor spits with conviction. "That's what makes you so disgusting. But it's still there." His fingers press into the side of my neck to feel for my pulse.

My mind interprets that as though I should cease to have a pulse. I furtively curl my fingers around Endeavor's wrists. Are you going to strangle me here? If that is the case, I will not protest. If my heart no longer beats, it can no longer throb with agony. So, perhaps...

His grip tightens around my neck; my throat squirms around as my breaths trickle in and out. "I will erase those features. It is amazing how disgusting they are. I waited. I waited all day for you." With a cold sneer on his oily face, his hands fall away from my neck and swiftly wiggle my damp shirt free from my body.

sh*t... Overwrought from the inimical hands now tracing along the scars on my arms, my vision periodically swells with a blurring heat. I cannot be certain whether it would be preferable for him to be sober or drunk. His fingers rub back and forth on the most prominent scar visible on my body. Was it an unconscious attempt?

"Most abominable," he hisses virulently, practically splattering his own saliva across my face as he does so. "You would do well to lose weight." He jabs his knee into my abdomen.

I quite enjoy eating, thank you. Even so, I haven't felt like it. I despise regurgitating it, though. Again, it certainly is not beneficial that I feel nauseous when I eat. Besides... I would much prefer my current state to when I physically felt as though I would collapse from exhaustion with each step. Bakugou would never forgive me if I regressed into a similar state again.

As Endeavor's knee practically parts the positions of my guts, he growls, "Up." Sliding out from the weight of his knee pressing into my body, I sit upright. "Off." His eyes are fixed on mine, but he points to my pants. "I said 'off.'" He winds around me to embrace my torso from behind.

What do I do? I frantically ask myself as my hands slowly begin to reach for my belt, hovering over it. Even if he's intoxicated, it would be suicide to endeavor an escape like this. He could simply bend and snap my neck into any position he desires. If I fail to comply... My hands begin their work at unbuckling my belt, shaking horrifically as they pull and push at it. This cannot be true. I cannot be stripping for him. No. What am I doing? He'll touch me. He will do far more than that. No... No. Why? Wh-Why must it have come to this? Even if I were to slug absurd amounts of soap and other, more intense cleaning products, nothing would scrub away this filth inside of me.

With a heavy, metallic thud against the floor, my belt is unraveled. His eyes...are bestial and voracious. I don't want this. Please tell me...that this is a nightmare to punish my insolence. I want to cry. I want to curl onto the floor, weeping until the next part of the play comes to pass. Stop. Please. No! Please... I can no longer control my breathing. A stifled squeak cuts through the thick air as a large, sweaty hand crawls down the front of my pants and gropes around.

"S-Stop." I whimper under my breath, attempting to still my wriggling from how absolutely odious and uncomfortable I feel.

The hand in my pants strokes over the bare protrusion of flesh that sheathes its intricately woven processes from my body, caressing it softly. "Off," he commands me with the slithering, venomous words of a spitting cobra.

I shake my head. "No," I inveigh as frost begins adhering to my skin.

Beat me as much as you please, but regardless of who you are to me, I will not tolerate this. No more. I... I'm being torn apart with every finger you touch me with. Don't. Don't touch me.

"What did you say?" he snaps as though his words are the jaws of a crocodile slamming shut.

Beat me until I perpetually forget and lack the capacity to remember anything at all, but... "No—"

The hand hugging tight against my chest leaps like a leopard, and before I realize it, a hard, crusty finger is inserted into my mouth. Absolutely not. Your filthy finger in my mouth... One finger splits into two belligerent, serpentine foes clutching my tongue. Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting. Thick, damaged nails dig into my tongue from the top and bottom in an attempt to restrain the writhing, slippery beast of pink.

"Disgusting," he sibilates as I prepare myself to bite down on his fingers. "I will remove it." As his fingers crawl along my tongue, I smash my teeth together as if to rend his very bones. "SON OF A BITCH!" Yanking back his hand, the bones beneath the thick layer of skin on his fingers rattle against my teeth.

As Endeavor's hand is torn from my mouth, he claws his other hand that's in my pants downwards, causing my jeans to slink to my ankles. With animalistic impulses, I thrust my right hand back into his abdomen and unleash a piercing lance of ice that digs through his flesh. Whirling around to face him with a wry, emphatic lour souring my countenance, I'm met with something sturdy and large ramming into my stomach. Recoiling back through the air, my head swiftly makes a hefty impact against what I groggily assume is a piece of furniture.

Get up, I scold myself with vindictive ire. Get up before... While blindly and desperately flailing around for something to orient myself with, the odor of alcohol permeates the air of my propinquity. sh*t! I can't... Nails pierce the flesh of my shoulders, jerking my body into the air as if I'm a fish flopping haplessly on its fell line. No, no, no! Hastily flashing both of my Quirks, my enraged assailant is undeterred from the maelstrom of ice and fire clashing in the air.

"Weak," he jeers, throwing down my body up against what I believe to be the side of the couch so that my head is buried into the object. "A f*cking disappointment." Both of my wrists are restrained by one of his dry, cracked hands. "Worthless. A worthless, sh*tty toy." My legs feel as though they will snap like twigs from Endeavor's weight crushing them. "Don't struggle—toys like you don't get to."

[⚠️ Rape begins here ⚠️]

As shards of frost crystallize on my skin and clothing, I can see a repugnant swirl of orange flare up from my dimmed, obscured vision as a scorching heat envelops my boxers.

"NO!" I ululate in a livid, visceral, searing shriek as something firm, warm, and long encroaches on the inside of my body from its unwarranted ingress below my tailbone.

A burning, tearing, grinding rush of grimy, effervescent friction pushes up inside of me. Realizing now the connotations of what I feel jamming inside me, I find myself helplessly hyperventilating as my lips peel back and soft, stifled sobs slip through my mouth.

He's inside me.

Again and again, as though a cylindrical pole is being jammed inside of me and ripped out in a cacophonous symphony of torment, I claw my nails down into Endeavor's filthy fingers. The lascivious beast of insobriety, however, doesn't deign to terminate his relentless, flagrant lancing that drips with a venomous, shuddering warmth.

Again, again. Stop. It hurts!

My abashed grunts and groans are scrambled and thrown askew as my body jerks and contorts from my resistance to Endeavor's grasp and the gnashing, searing sensation of being furiously penetrated by the figure I supposedly know as my father; these odious, verbal cries are entangled with and evidently dominated by the inexpiable moans frothing up from the maw of the beast beating me from the inside. His old, musty claws coil around my flesh, grinding deeper with each thrust until even my blood is contaminated by his repulsive actions. Putrid drips of his sweat and saliva drool down onto my lower back and cool into crusty stains while my eyes are savaged by fuming terror and glacial astonishment.

Stop, stop, stop!

Unable to suppress the ardent emotions boiling up from my being, I unfetter them with a malicious maelstrom of a subzero contortion of the air followed by a sharp, immediate spiral of what resembles that of a solar flare. A crossfire of blue and orange sears my inky eyes as my wrists are released and the suffocating pressure hammering into my body is abruptly yanked out. Scrambling forwards onto the couch like an animal, I fervently gasp in rapid, mind-numbing spurts. My eyes dart to Endeavor, who is reeling back from my final gambit of sorts; dagger-like fragments of ice protrude from his body.

[⚠️ Rape ends here ⚠️]

I hurt him. He hurt me. What is the right thing to do? I am absolutely terrified. I haven't any clothes on. What do I do? I don't want to hurt him again, but I... I don't know. I don't know. I feel sick beyond my stomach, but I've practically nothing to expel. Sick. I am sick. His actions are sick. We are both sick.

Clinging tightly to the back of the couch in the corner farthest from Endeavor, I covertly scramble towards the floor. My bare body violently trembles from my neck to the tips of my fingers and toes as I watch Endeavor's every move. The filthy Flame Hero seems to be lost in a drunken daze with his spine slouched over on the floor. Sidling up along the wall, my jittering eyes are drawn abruptly to a moving figure from the shadows.

"Holy f*ck! " Bakugou yelps in an irate growl, tearing across the floor and standing before me with his eyes likely staring down at Endeavor. "You stay behind me, dammit," he snarls at me before pointing at Endeavor. "You f*ckin' asshat! " He begins to creep towards Endeavor, furtively grasping behind his back towards me; a thick book is in his hand. "Ice," he sibilates under his breath.

Why are you here? I ask myself while feebly freezing the book over with ice. Bakugou...I can't stop shaking. Chills are running down my spine. I feel sick. Filthy. Disgusting. Worthless. Mortified. Dismayed. What deprecating emotions. It hurts to feel. I want to cut away that pain. I want to forget. I want to forget that my own father would...

"You think you can do this sh*t to your son?" Bakugou seethingly fulminates with words imbued with malevolent retribution. "f*ck. No. He's a motherf*cking human, unlike you, you bastard! I get what I want, and I want you..." His chin lifts up as he raises the book behind his head. "...to f*ck OFF! " With the swing of the book, Endeavor evades it by the skin of his teeth and expeditiously nails Bakugou's head against the wall.

"Bakugou!" I gasp in a husky whine.

"Stay the hell back," he grunts, launching a precision-based thread of an explosion into Endeavor's neck. "You're going down, you piece of sh*t! " While his forehead grinds against Endeavor's chin, he harshly knees Endeavor in the chest.

Endeavor sinks his teeth into Bakugou's arm, and while Bakugou vehemently snarls, a massive plume of scarlet and tangerine soaks the air. Like meteors hammering Endeavor's neck and chest, the beast of flame is thrust backwards and sent crashing to the floor.

"Hero or not, you don't mess with Katsuki f*cking Bakugou!" Mercilessly bashing the solid, leaden book of ice down onto the back of Endeavor's skull, the book shatters into azure shards stained with diamond frost. "DIE, YOU ASSHOLE!" Slamming his foot into Endeavor's chest, he releases fuming breaths while examining Endeavor's fallen body.

Why did you...brazenly attempt to save me? Why did you leap into danger like that? I'm not worth that. Had he not been so dazed on alcohol and lust, he could have fatally wounded you. If he hadn't been...dazed on alcohol...

Slinking down against the wall, I press my right hand against my face as my suppressed sobs seep through my unsteady breaths. My nails begin curling into the skin surrounding my right eye. Breaking apart as my heart is drowned by the weight of the tears flooding from my eyes, I can feel the crystallized frost slithering across my right half.

It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! My body aches, my stomach churns, my pernicious, self-degrading mind thinks only of the worst, a-and my heart... I detest its pulse. I don't...want to hear it anymore. It's such a sickening tune. No more... I hate the horrible ticking in my chest. It hurts. Make it stop...

"Todoroki?" Bakugou calls, his soothing voice immediately beside me. "Wouldja let me put my arm around you?" I nod slowly, steeling myself for the warm contact to my body; I flinch at his arm gliding across my skin. "I'm right here. Cry as much as you want—it'll be good for ya. You have every f*cking right to cry, Todoroki. Every. f*cking. Right." He intimately rubs the back of my neck. "You wanna...get changed?"

I languidly nod. I'm so incredibly weak. I have every right to cry? 'Men don't cry.' I should not be crying. I should be fighting. Midoriya... Even when the odds are against him, he does it all with a smile. I admire that, even if I don't deserve to smile. I should have fled before he could touch me. I should have aided Bakugou in reprimanding him. I was paralyzed. I couldn't move. I couldn't...do anything.

A light clunk and the motion of something entering my peripheral vision startles me, but I appear unfazed. "Want me to get you fresh clothes?" Bakugou's gentle, sonorous voice asks. "I assume you don't wanna wear damp clothes." I nod, rummaging through my pants for my phone; checking it reveals a single unread text message that's from Bakugou. "I ain't leavin' you here, but... f*ck. Here, take my hand so you know I'm here." Offering his hand to me, I glance up enough to see his fingers before grasping his hand.

Your hand is so warm. A good warmth. A sweet warmth. A clean warmth. But I still feel so cold inside. So sick. So rotten. So filthy.

Once the two of us reach my room through the silence shattered by my shaky breaths and soft sobs that I internally chastise myself for, I change into new clothes, benumbed as I do so. The sensation of the clothes sliding over my skin simply reminds me of how they were stripped from my body.

"I'm...done," I sigh with an ineffectual voice. "A-Are you all right?"

He nods while turning to face me. "Nothin' I can't handle. Now, c'mon. I'm taking you home with me. You are not staying here when there's a feral f*ckin' animal on the loose." While pensively following Bakugou's feet, I glance up from the floor and grasp his hand of my own volition. "The f*ck are... Oi. I'd ask if you're all right, but you're clearly not. Mind tellin' me what he did?" His thumb gently rubs along my thumb.

I...am a disappointment for what I've done today, so you have every f*cking right to know. Every. f*cking. Right. "He...touched me," I whisper with a defeated, hoarse voice. "He removed my shirt. He told me to remove my p-pants. I...u-undid the belt. I was afraid. But I didn't want it. Then...he put... H-He reached...down my pants a-and eventually stripped me." Remaining silent for a moment to stabilize my breathing again and endure the recollection of what transpired, I squeeze Bakugou's hand. "He put his f-filthy fingers in my mouth. He... I...I didn't see it, but I felt it. I know h-he... I know he r-raped me, Bakugou."

Bakugou stops in his tracks, and for a few century-long seconds, he remains silent; I lift my head to see his hair half-illuminated by the cascading rivers of saffron pouring down from the nearby streetlight. "You've also..." he whispers before promptly shaking his head. "We're telling someone about this. Know what? Tomorrow morning, we're tellin' Caterpillar Man." Perhaps I simply will not awaken in the morning. "Who knows if any officials would believe me, the most arrogant dick they've seen, and I wouldn't put you through the agony of saying it all yourself. I'm sure you don't want this to happen, but that sack of sh*t has done enough damage. This just decimated the negative straws he already had. He's lucky I didn't sever his f*cking head. Tch. I'm gonna protect you...and make sure that never f*cking happens again. Never. I promise that, goddammit." He sighs aridly, yet with solace. "'Side from that, is there anything I can do for you?"

I'm quite hungry...even if I still feel like throwing up. "I'm...hungry," I sigh as a shiver rattles my spine.

"Already? I'd say this is a positive turn of events, but I dunno how much I buy it. Wait. f*ck. You said that that sh*t stick put his fingers in your mouth. Holy f*ck... I feel sick just thinking about that. Oh, God."

There was nothing on the floor, was there? I do not regret clamping down on his hand. I can only imagine the gruesome ramifications if I hadn't. Perhaps I am not so hungry. Still. I need to take what I can before I reach the point of being unable to. Whether that first occurs then or then is something I would not know.

I remain silent to prevent myself from unknowingly or accidentally slipping shards of the abhorrent truth into my words. Lightly scratching my left arm with my right hand, I stare at the bandages covering my left hand. Recalling the wondrous reprieve provided from the glass cutting into my skin, I unconsciously begin to hasten my scratches.

Bakugou's hand that is now interlaced with mine loosens its hold a bit. His thumb traces from hugging against my thumb to brushing over my knuckles and partially over my forefinger. He sighs as I slip my hand away.

"You're doing it again," he informs me, and upon hearing his comment, I pull away my hand from my arm. "Oi. You know I'm always gonna be here for ya, right? If you can't defend yourself, I will. If you can't fight, I'll fight. If you can't take care of yourself, I'll take care of you. Hear all that? I mean it. I damn well mean it. But, hey. Only if you're comfortable with it, I wouldn't mind carrying you to my house since we're going at a snail's pace." He glances over his shoulder and is likely met with a dour frown.

You can trust him, Shoto. "You won't hurt me, will you?" I candidly question.

"Hell no. Not intentionally. If I hurt you, then tell me that so I can set things right. Got it?" I nod, glimpsing into his resplendent eyes. "Good. If anyone else hurts you, I ain't afraid to beat their ass to save you." He whirls around and stretches out his arms to me, so I nod again as he lifts me into his arms. "Just as a reminder, I'm doin' this because we'd take seven centuries to get there if I didn't do this." He now propels into the air with his booming Quirk.

I'm sorry for being a burden of baggage. But... 'Anyone else' includes me. I am that 'someone else' to someone else, and you are that 'someone else' to me. Yet you have been so amiable when you are with me. You should be pushing me away and disparaging me. You believe you can save me, do you? What an asinine way of thinking. To save me from myself... How might you attain such a feat? I am selfish. You reiterate time after time that you don't want me to hurt inside, yet, in a way, all that I do seems to contribute to this inner agony. You want me to be kind to myself, and to treat myself right. I rebuke myself for being alive. I rebuke myself for wanting to die. I hate myself. How I treat myself is deserving only of revile. You don't want me to cut, but...nothing else helps as swiftly and effectively as it has proven to be. I feel so delirious with adrenaline before it is exsanguinated and I instead feel calmer. I forget. I soar into the sky. I want to slice into my skin so badly. So badly...to forget what he did. Even if only for a transient moment. I feel something different—something good. I want to forget that filthiness. That pain. That sorrow. That trauma. Those execrable memories.

"I didn't know the average human lifespan drastically increased," I say quizzically, finally beginning to hammer down my emotions and reinforce my facade.

I don't believe I will ever be capable of looking at Endeavor without feeling grimy and filthy. Not...when I know what he did to me. Not when I know that he was inside me. I'm shaking again. I truly was destined to be used and thrown away. Even though I have been used and thrown away so many times...I am still here. All because he texted me that day. But I'm sick of living. I'm sick from this godforsaken disease. I'm sick in the mind. I am sick. I'm sick...of remembering how he touched me. How he stripped me. How he rubbed me. How he...

"You're awfully perky all of a sudden," he states with manifest astuteness. "What? Enamored by having the honor of being held by me? Joking, if you thought I was serious." As another one of his explosions smudges his mien with streaks of light, I can make out a vague powder of pink mingling in the mix.

Very much so. "You aren't wrong," I admit as we arrive at Bakugou's abode. "Thank you for...everything, K—" You have never thought of referring to him simply as Katsuki before. "Ah. Could you..." I glance down to the ground, internally supplicating that I managed to create a convincing falsehood.

"Mm," he hums as a soft, throaty reaction. "Oi. What do you wanna eat?" He unlocks his front door and allows me inside first.

"Anything," I answer dejectedly while slipping off my shoes.

Bakugou tilts his head. "'Kay. Need anything for the damage from that asshat?"

I shake my head as Mitsuki rounds the corner and greets me with a jovial, yet bewildered look. "Oh, you're back, Shoto," she chuckles. "You're always welcomed in this house. You've really softened Katsuki up, y'know?" Her pupils devilishly dart to Bakugou.

He twists his lips back. "Believe whatever the f*ck you want, old hag," he groans. "Tch. Endeavor was a bitch, as always."

I don't need to be loved to be all right, right? I cogitate, staring down at the floor between my feet. Even if this disease has only one cure—love—I don't want to be loved. If I am not loved, my death will not have as great of an impact as it would if they loved me. Love... I want to give kindness—not love, because 'my love is a poison.' I want them to be happy. But they cannot be happy when I am like this. I've only had an increasing appetite for dragging blades over my skin. Why couldn't I...have died? I wouldn't be forced to question why I couldn't die. I wouldn't wonder why I want to die. I wouldn't be plagued with the incessant beckoning of the command to cut. I wouldn't...have been through what transpired today. His...hands. His fingers. His eyes. All...on me. Piercing through me. In me. Stop. Make it stop.

"...n't do that, old hag! Todoroki? Oi. Oi. Todoroki?"

I slip beyond the crystalline border of ground and sky, plummeting down into a sapphire lake below. Submerged now in reality again, I can feel my body trembling as my tightening chest rapidly inflates and deflates, pushing up and down in a frantic rhythm. As clarity stains my vision mired by my mind, I jerk my head up from being locked on the floor to meet two ruby spheres.

He didn't...aggressively shout to grab my attention. Why is he so kind to me? I don't deserve it, but he holds me close and cherishes the fact that I am alive. I can't... I don't have the right to feel sad, but all I feel is this perpetual despondency and emptiness. Why? He understands how I truly think and feel to such an extent that it is uncanny.

"Deep breaths, Shoto," Mitsuki calmly instructs me.

Shoto, 'you f*cking worthless piece of sh*t.'

Once I've somewhat regained my composure and manage to bury my glaring consternation, Mitsuki demands to hear from Bakugou what happened this time. Bakugou, with the vexed click of his tongue, claims that "that bastard probably left traumatic scars." After Mitsuki gently prods for additional information from me to no avail, I slowly fill my stomach with milk and curry.

"Ain't the curry cold by now?" Bakugou asks, and to which I nod at. "Oh. Guess you'd like it that way. Hey. You look like sh*t—more so than you were a bit ago. Talk to me." His gentle authority forces my voice from my throat.

My mind is caught in a crossfire of conflicting ideals. "I-I don't feel well," I sigh, forcing down another bite of curry. Anything being put inside me reminds me of...how he filled me.

He ejects a sigh from his lips. "Tch. I can't f*cking begin to imagine. Who the hell does he think he is? Goddammit. Oi. You don't have to eat all that." His fingers, with perfunctory movements, rest gently on my arm.

"I have to," I find myself muttering aloud.

"Why?" he queries.

"I don't want to talk about it."

Kiri...why the hell did you accept the fact that I broke up with you with that endearing smile? You talk so casually to me still. It's like we were never together in the first place, yet you bring up all those good times we had. I wish you...remembered what you did that night. It was my f*cking fault for not paying attention, but why was it only your drink that got spiked? Tch. I don't think I can ever be enough of a man to tell you the truth about what happened. I'm the only one who knows, so it essentially doesn't exist to anyone else but me. Even my memory of it is pretty damn fuzzy, but... Yeah. I'd like your smile to stay as f*cking blindingly bright as it is right now.

The f*ck was that? Oh, sh*t. Don't tell me that that ass is back already! No doubt that that potent, foul scent is alcohol. Todoroki? What the f*ck is he doing?! His hand's bleeding. But what in the living hell was he doing with these damned bottles of alcohol? No way in hell was he was planning on drinking. He's crying. I need to get him away from both the alcohol and the glass. Tch. Yeah. There's glass in his hand. Just his left hand. Stop...hurting yourself, goddammit! You keep hurting yourself again and again! Don't be such a self-abasing sack of sh*t to yourself. You... All I want is to see you happy. All this time, and I know... Todoroki, if you kill yourself, I will never forgive you, or myself. That's the most offensive f*cking thing you could do to me. You better know that. You're not weak or cowardly for wanting to die, but you're a coward for going through with it and succeeding. We're all fighting here. I...I need you here, Todoroki.

sh*t. I forgot my sweatshirt at his house. Guess it's an excuse to check on him again. Still, I should get this alcohol home in one piece first. I'll text him. He still hasn't responded. Tch. Endeavor's probably talking to him. What? Why the hell's the back door open? Still goin' in through Todoroki's window. He's not in his room? His phone's not here, either. Huh. I feel bad for sto o ping as low as searching through his stuff, but he's gotta have something he usually uses to cut. I won't take it, but I'm curious. Nothing here. Nope. Scissors? They look relatively dull. Probably not. His bedside table... The hell's this? Antidepressants? When did he start taking these? Has he been taking them for a long time? I'll figure it out later. Well, aren't these some small, nifty scissors? Glass shards, too? How sharp are these scissors? I know how they look in the drawer now, so I better not f*cking forget five seconds from now. Ow! sh*t. Holy hell. Well, even though I don't see any blood on these scissors, I'm still washing off the bit that touched my skin. There. Looks just—Todoroki?! Did he just f*cking scream? sh*t! There's that ass! He's a mess on the floor? Where the f*ck is Todoroki? f*ck. He's... Don't look at him, Katsuki!

Chapter 7: Twilight Truth

Chapter Text

"So..." whispers Bakugou after I've finished expelling plant matter and blood from my system and have prepared myself for bed. "How do you wanna go about sleeping? Really, I'm perfectly f*ckin' fine with the floor. You have my word that I won't do anything to you without your consent. Tch. Well, don't think dirty thoughts..." He firmly nods his head with a steady gaze of vermillion.

I know that I can trust you, but this skepticism biting into my thoughts says otherwise. What if you forget? What if...this is some sort of devious machination? Am I simply a fool? No. I feel ashamed that I would deign to think of him like that. Yet, I cannot truly know his thoughts. That dubiety is such a suffocating flaw. In this world, is it feasible to trust others? A villain donning a heroic, jubilant mask is all we could be. We? Can I trust myself?

I shake my head. "It's fine. Don't sleep on the floor," I murmur as a desiccated undertone.

"Todoroki." He drums his fingers along his arm. "Is it so damn much to ask that you're comfortable? Don't give me the convenient answer. Give me the honest answer. I value honesty a lot. If you're not comfortable, I'll feel like sh*t. I know you're not gonna feel completely comfortable after what happened, but as much as we can muster, right? Oi. Listen to me." I lift my head up to face him. "Does it feel good to make yourself suffer?"

I surreptitiously snap my teeth down onto my lower lip. "Why?" I question with monochrome words.

I hate it, but I know I deserve it. Say what they want to hear, even if it hurts. No one said both truth and lies are not both beautiful and repulsive. If I endure the hit, then the others are shielded. Yet when they realize, they become rather flippant and precipitous, charging headlong into the line of fire.

He exhales slowly through his nostrils. "Answer the question."

He speaks with such calmness. "Sometimes?" I hesitantly reply.

"Sometimes? Like when?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry." I lightly feather my right thumb across the bandages of my left hand. "I suppose...it feels good when something sharp is cutting into my skin." My tapering words drench the two of us with sandy silence for a moment.

While I scratch at my arm, Bakugou releases a doleful sigh. "I really do appreciate the f*ck out of the times you tell me the truth. Get that into your thick skull. Not trying to extenuate this, so... We've got to think of something to ease you off of it." He pauses, glancing over to me with eyes that immediately apprehend my hand from my arm. "I know you can't just put away the blade and everything will be better. But you can't not try to get better. Not under my watch. Your skin is scarred enough, Todoroki. Now, c'mon. What are we gonna do about the sleep situation?"

I shrug. Vanity is what I am. "I said that I'm fine sleeping with you. O-Only if it's you." My eyes falter from his gaze as a subtle warmth sighs along my cheeks. "I trust you..." I think I do, at least.

Bakugou, whose cheeks have been flushed with the coruscating pink of spring cherry blossoms, now veers away his gaze from me. "O-Okay. f*ck. You..." He trails off, cupping his hand over his mouth.

"Are you feeling all right?" I gingerly inquire while the sweet warmth flooding through my body lingers.

He nods rapidly. "Yeah, I'm all right. I'm feeling pretty ga... Great, actually." He removes his hand from his mouth to reveal an enticing smirk.

Suffusing the room is a saccharine sap of endearment that transiently inveigles my mind into soft repose. Mellow yet vigorous, the air cradles the two of us as if we're snuggling supine in a hammock woven by tender, authentic intimacy and trust.

What a beautiful smirk. "Really?" I say almost teasingly, amused by his ebullient mien.

His smirk melts into a smile. "Maybe you really do make me soft, Todoroki. How the hell do you do it?"

"So...you aren't denying it?" I now wholeheartedly tease him as he rolls his eyes at me. "Ah... I don't know, honestly. I know you've gotten me to open up more, though. An eye for an eye, I suppose. You're softer and I'm more talkative."

Now evidently blushing, Bakugou hisses, "You sound... Nah. I'll shut the f*ck up. C'mon. Get in the damn bed, Icyhot." Still with a jubilant smirk tugging at the peripheries of his lips, he gently points at the bed.

A slim, poignant smile beseeches my lips to follow the curve of Bakugou's, but the grimy weight of my heart pushes the tips down. "Thank you, Bakugou," I whisper, carrying my smile through my words before it withers away into cool, dim embers.

You were going to tell me I sound way too f*cking happy for what just happened, weren't you? You looked...so elated to see me a bit brighter than usual. So, I tried to smile. But I couldn't hold it up. Even for you, I failed to stay my bent emotions—the elastic curves snapped back up into a fell, straight line. Even when I struggle towards the hand reaching for me, I simply sink back twice my efforts. He is so kind to me. He never had to be. What in me does he see? Even so... Please, I ask that you cease these ample offerings of kindness. You never...had to do this all for me. It hurts, but you hold me close and remind me again of a tomorrow where I will see you again. Again, again. Lest a day arise when even that cannot quell the quarreling flames that asphyxiate my soul...

Bakugou's brilliant smirk diminishes as I nestle myself into his bed that smells faintly of what I would describe as ash-rose; smokey and bitter with a sweet appearance and aftertaste. He remains silent as he soon follows suit with his short-sleeved shirt clinging to his admirable, husky build. Flicking off the light beside his bed, the soft shuffling of his limbs echoes through the room.

Staring into the void of black before me as my eyes unhurriedly adjust to the inkiness of the room, I eject a sigh. Splaying my fingers through the darkness, the cool air wraps around the seemingly webbed flesh between my digits.

Even though I have so many reasons to live, fight, and acquire invaluable memories, I still think of all the ways I could take my own life. I hear his words. I feel their sincerity. I understand them. Despite that, they simply seem to aggregate into rancorous packs of wolves circling me from the shadows. They howl to remind me of my ignorance. They growl to remind me of my callous recalcitrance. They snap their jaws at my heels to remind me of my own vanity. I fear them. Try as I might to accept them, I've only so many fingers to feed to the voracious beasts.

"Bakugou?" I ask softly, continuing to stare vacantly at the wall in front of me.

He briefly drones, "Hm?" I can hear his head lifting up and tilting towards me from the silky, grainy smoothness of his body brushing against the bed.

Perhaps I can distract myself from these pernicious thoughts of mine. "Do you remember when... Ah. I suppose you were asleep. You wrapped your arm around me and—"

"Like this?" Bakugou's robust arm spills cautiously over my neck, his hand dangling over my chest.

"Yes," I reply, "like this. How did you know?" I lift my gaze a bit before returning it to Bakugou's darkened hand.

"You're as oblivious as ever," he snickers with his voice pressed up against my ear. "But...I was awake. You held—"

"Like this?" Our warm fingers slip between the gaps of the other's fingers.

He snorts lightly, his breath tickling the back of my neck. "Yup, asshat."

"I feel safe like this. Your hands are clean. They aren't...groping for something like his." I gently push his knuckles into my chest. "I forgot how much I once enjoyed physical touch. My mom would stroke her hand through my hair. I miss it." Closing my eyes, I soon feel a familiar hand snaking across my hair.

As the hand caressing my head deftly weaves through my white and red tendrils of hair, Bakugou murmurs, "If you miss it, I'll give it to you. This feel good? Or bad?" His massaging fingers slow to a halt.

"I like it...a lot." My cheeks feel warm again.

"Tell me if you don't like it, 'kay? Long as you're comfortable, I'll keep going. Maybe it'll help you get some damn sleep."

A voiceless chuckle falls from my lips. "Perhaps," I say with frost peppering my breaths. "Thank you, Bakugou. You don't have to be so kind to me." Still cradling his hand in mine, I lightly exhale.

"You know what, Todoroki? I want to be kind to you. I wanna be the kindest person I can to you—I'll push my own limits to get there. It'll be a good mutual experience, yeah?" He slowly shifts our entwined hands so that the back of his hand can feel the full wrath of my effervescent heart. "Your hand's pretty shaky. You've got a damn good heart, Todoroki. We're gonna mend the damage. It'll take time, and it's never really gonna go away, but we'll do what we can. Yes, we, Todoroki. Now, stop talking to me and start trying to fall asleep."

If only...

Once Bakugou's alarm screeches like the shrill shriek of a hawk, I sigh, having no desire to depart from the comfort of the bed. His hand that's interlaced with mine finally splits away as he silences the ear-piercing wailing of the alarm on his phone.

Dragging my leaden body out of bed, I brace myself for the day ahead of me. Now changing into uniform after showering, I force a deluge of bloodied yellow petals from my lungs. After cleaning out my mouth, I manage to stomach the entirety of the breakfast Bakugou prepared for me with the only repercussion being quite the stomachache.

Arriving extraordinarily early at U.A. and entering our classroom, a bleary-eyed Aizawa glances up from his desk and stands up expeditiously when his eyes fall on me. "Did something happen?" he queries, briskly approaching the two of us.

As I nod, Bakugou eyes me before crossing his arms and closing tight his fists. "Yeah. Something sure did f*cking happen. The motherf*cker going by the sh*tty name of Endeavor got drunk and...he raped his own son last night." He shakes his head with seething rancor.

Aizawa's eyes widen in stupefaction, yet he remains stolid as he states, "I will report this immediately. Why did you not contact me or another adult the night it occurred?" He pulls out his phone from his pocket.

"I know the bastard isn't going anywhere. All that mattered to me was getting Todoroki the f*ck out of there and somewhere safe." His teeth gleam through the pink of his lips.

I am...incredibly burdensome. "I'm sorry," I whisper, my expression grim and despondent.

Aizawa lowers his gaze to meet mine. "Listen here, kid," he gently sighs. "This was not your fault. I'll get this taken care of. While I do, Bakugou, I want you to watch over him and ensure that he feels safe and comfortable." The solace flaking from his words simultaneously stirs my mind with warmth and guilt.

- Month 1, Week 2 -

By the end of the week, both unfortunate and auspicious news—respectively—have arrived for me to hear. The paramount, hapless news is that even Aizawa was unable to present an argument strong and effective enough to so much as entertain the idea that Endeavor was culpable for what he did to me that night. Of course, Bakugou's fuse is both ignited and decimated upon hearing this, leaving him as an irate incendiary waiting for even the faintest speck of a spark to enter his vicinity in order to explode. The felicitous piece of news, however, is that starting next week and spanning out for a duration of two weeks, our class will be venturing out to a relatively small, nice town by the ocean as a celebration for making it to our final term. Aizawa explains that there are ten houses, so there will be two people assigned per house; we are free to select who we'd like to live with for two weeks.

While the class pairs off and convivial conversations arise from the announcement of the two weeks of relaxation and the end of the day, I promptly rise from my seat and exit the classroom, striding desperately towards the bathroom. Once alone in the bathroom, I immediately begin to cough up the flower petals that scratch at my chest. While in the process of this, however, my breaths between coughs shiver from the sight of small green leaves now joining the amalgamation of plant matter.

While drying off my hands after washing them and scrubbing even under my nails, Kirishima enters the restroom. "Bakubro asked me to check on ya," he nonchalantly hums. "Aizawa's talking to him right now. So, what's shakin', Todoroki? You seem kinda pale. You've been coughing more recently. Oh, you're not sick, are you? If you are, I'm sure you'll get through it like a man!" He now smiles jubilantly. "Anyways, you don't look like you're doing so hot."

You speak far too much far too quickly. "What is this 'so hot' that I should be doing?" I ask, exhausted simply by hearing Kirishima's animated comments.

"Man, someone should teach you some humor! Like. Huh. You don't look like you're doing very well," he rephrases.

My shoulders shift upwards ever so slightly before relaxing back into place. "Oh?"

"Well. So, you're pale. You flew out of the classroom. Bakubro wanted me to check on you. Something seems fishy! Oh. Hey... You're not still upset about when I grabbed your arm, are you? It was a while ago, but it wasn't very manly of me." He scratches the back of his head, much like Bakugou would have done.

Your hand on my arm... His hands on me... Him in me... I find myself paralyzed in place as my memories fire through my mind like bullets from a machine gun. Holding me... Rubbing me... In me...

A hand frantically waving in front of my face grasps my attention. "Todoroki? Oh, hey. Welcome back. I'm Kirishima, if you forgot." He grins at me. "What were you thinking about?"

Don't...smile at me like that. "Nothing. I need to go. Sorry." Without another word, I flee from the bathroom and return to the classroom to see Bakugou and Aizawa talking outside. I retrieve my belongings from the classroom and scurry back out to the two, scratching my arm as I do.

Aizawa nods at Bakugou before turning to face me. "Are you comfortable attending the trip?" he asks.

I nod as Bakugou gestures for me to follow him, and before I know it, the two of us have departed from U.A. "Where are we going, Bakugou?" I question, still attempting to bat away the lingering memories grinding into my mind.

"Remember how we were gonna get you out of the house last week? Well, we're doing that today. So, what do you wanna do? If you don't pick, then we'll walk for a while."

I want to do absolutely nothing. The only appealing idea that rings in my head is to cut, but would you not be abashed because of me for that? The rush of adrenaline, the blade cutting into my skin, the swift motions, the scorching of my skin, the blood... Whisked into such a place above the clouds, I forget—I become entranced by the sheer grandeur of the feeling of floating on air and above reality. Is it so much to ask to forget for even a transient moment? Because it hurts. It's a terrible, interminable pain in my heart that I can dull with this euphoric sensation.

With heedful slowness, Bakugou's hand embraces mine. "Don't." As his hand pulls away from mine, I cling tightly to his. "Oi... You okay with people thinkin' we're a couple?"

"A couple of what?" I ask, relishing the reaffirming palpability of his hand in mine.

He shakes his head a bit. "You're as dense as a damn rock. Dense, as in stupid. Don't take that seriously. Tch..." He clicks his tongue.

"You're very confusing."

"That so? Can't help it. Deal with it. Damn. That sounded harsh. f*ck..." He slides the palm of his hand from his forehead and into his forest of ash-blonde hair tendrils.

You seem less composed than usual. "It's fine, Bakugou," I say while releasing his hand; I convince myself that our fastened fingers caused his perturbation. "Don't beat yourself up." I glance at the ground.

Hypocrite, I inwardly snarl.

His brows shuffle downwards. "You, the king of self-abasem*nt, telling me not to beat myself up? What the f*ck?"

Fully cognizant that my nails are scraping at my arm, I mutter through my gritted teeth, "I can't...help it." Dismayed, I hang my head.

I throw the lies I'm fed with back at the people around me. I choke them down, thank the person for the hollow words, and allow them to uncomfortably settle before the time arises to spit them out for someone else. All I am...

His hand grasps mine. "Hey. It's fine, Todoroki. I'm just good at unintentionally lashing out. But, we need to break that, then. What's a part of yourself you like?" He stuffs his free hand into his pocket.

How could I like something as filthy as whatever I am? It's so abominably filthy that...Endeavor wanted to destroy it from the inside. Even the inside of me is filthy. So filthy. No one could truly love something so odious and self-deprecating. I don't want to be loved. I don't want to love. What gives me the right...

"Todor—"

In quite the dither, I rip away my hand from Bakugou's, now breathing heavily from the dismal smog of the memories savaging my mind. "Don't touch me," I precipitously huff before casting awry my gaze from the trepidation dinned into my instincts. "Sorry..."

I long for the clean, immaculate touch he provides, yet it still reminds me so strongly of the filthy hands of Endeavor's that would grope me. It reminds me that he is not simply a figment of my imagination. It reminds me that I truly am awake. It reminds me that...I am real. Still. Why must I be real when I simply hurt the people around me like this?

As the two of us begin to approach a familiar section of land leading to a place I once crossed through every day, Bakugou sighs, "When you apologize all the damn time, it makes me feel like sh*t. Todoroki, I just want you to be f*cking okay. Is there something more—something better, even—that I could be doing to make it any easier?" His morose eyes of garnet twist the strings of my heart, warping them unnaturally and tapering them asunder.

I hate...how much you care about me. "It's fine, Bakugou."

"It isn't fine—"

"Need I remind you that we are in public?" I say in a brisk sigh. "Now is not an appropriate time." Shaking my head, I peer out to the familiar view of suspended bridge overlooking city.

None currently occupy its steel clutches. It has been quite some time. As alluring as the thought of soaring into the sky and rending the translucent, placid ocean of reality is, I would be quite the fool to attempt such a feat with Bakugou at my side.

As we approach the bridge painted in steel-gray and slate-gray with arms of a thick plastic resembling glass, Bakugou grumbles, "Oi. There you go with the silver tongue. Let's go somewhere else." He gestures for me to follow him to a divergent path.

I shake my head. "I won't. I'm not heartless. If you're worried, hold my hand." I offer my hand to him, which he accepts with squinted vacillation encroaching on his resplendent irises.

"What if it awakens some sudden urge? I don't know!" Evidently irked, he releases a soft snort.

"I think—"

Dammit. I think about it frequently enough. Even when I am capable of grasping those thoughts and ascending to the sky, I always pull away.

"—I'll be fine. I visited this bridge a lot in the past." Once the two of us step onto the unwavering, sturdy bridge overlooking the convivial city beneath, I peer over the ledge with my hand restrained firmly by Bakugou's iron grip. "I'd come here to escape from Endeavor. Not many people pass through here. Some take this bridge daily, though."

Bakugou sighs. "Why'd you come here?"

I shrug. "It's a fair distance away. I guess...if he ever followed me, I could've jumped. Weak and selfish, I'm aware." My arms now rest on the guard railing as I inhale deeply.

He averts his eyes from the bustling, fluctuating ground to glance over at me. "Well, I guess your point's true, but that's sickening to think about. Tch. So... What'd you do? How long wouldja stay?"

Questions, questions... "I'd think. My visits were usually an hour at the minimum." I now rest my chin on my curled fingers. "What did I think about? Ah..." I stretch out my toes as a bitter shower of heat licks my limbs. "What my life would be like, had I been responsible and forced Endeavor to put down the alcohol... What I am... My purpose here... Why the hell I'm here..." Fortuitously spewing my last remark, I fail to realize I've uttered it aloud.

I don't want to be here, yet I still plod through with this life of mine. I want to throw it all away—crush it, burn it, shatter it into unidentifiable, irreparable shards. What purpose do I serve? What—

Gently and cautiously does an arm snake over my shoulders. "Something's keeping you here. Something's keeping you from leaving. Whatever that is, find it and beat the hell outta embracing it. Keep going, Todoroki. You'll be glad you did. You ain't weak for wanting this. But, oi. You make me smile, Todoroki..." He looks as though he's preparing himself to continue on, but he closes his eyes and sighs. "You give me another reason to live. You give me something to look forward to. You've given me your friendship, and that alone is one of the best things I've managed to procure. Hear me?

"Your mind's full of sh*t. You probably think that all you're doing is hurting and worrying everyone, but that isn't true. Sure, we wanna help you, and maybe we do get worried, but that's cuz we're all f*cking humans here. With exceptions, it's ingrained in us as the damn humans we are to be sympathetic. I won't say I appreciate it all the time, but it's just what we are—can't change that. Even the exceptions are just as human." He exhales slowly. "The moments I've had with you, I wouldn't trade for anything. Give me the world, and I'll ask for my memories with you. I mean that." His expression is stern, yet dappled with a light peach hue.

A soughing breeze tugs at the tendrils of my evenly divided hair of red and white. Once I gaze at Bakugou's gently swaying mass of ash-blonde, my heart leaps up through my chest.

"How? I-I'm not sure I understand."

His grip on my hand tightens. "I... Because I love...having you at my side. I can't explain my goddamn emotions, but my day automatically brightens when I'm spending it with you. That's something I never felt when I was with sh*tty Hair. Sure, I'd be stoked to do some dumb sh*t with him, but he was never what was always first on my mind. You're always at the top of my thoughts, Todoroki."

You care so much about me... Even though my heart wishes to be glued back together with your words and actions, my mind wants to estrange myself from you. My mind is the fell dictator here.

I remain silent, leaving the two of us to wade in the waters of silence agitated by the wind and buzzing chatter below. Our hands remain interlaced, and Bakugou's arm rests along my shoulders. While I stare vacantly down at the ground, I notice Bakugou glancing over at me a few times.

"You keep looking at me," I comment with pedestrian bluntness.

"Because you're... Look, I'm making sure you're not starting to lean over or anything. That's all." He turns his nose opposite my direction.

I think you're lying. "I see."

Bakugou...whenever I am with you, why does it kill me so softly? So slowly? So inadvertently? I want to be with you, but it hurts both my lungs and my heart. I feel so comfortable and warm, yet so disgusted and cold. Two or three months...is all that remains of our time together. The pain of losing this ethereal feeling around you is ceaseless—it refuses to subside. I do not want the surgery if I am to lose these feelings. I've grown far too attached. Why have I allowed myself to grow so attached?

"You all right?"

The same question and the same lie again and again with no end in sight. "I'm fine," I sigh.

"It'd be nice if you'd stop lying to me," he scoffs while the wind tousles his clothing and pokes at his hair. "I already know the truth, so why do you keep lying to my face?"

"Do you?" I challenge him with my lifeless insouciance. "Am I?"

His head tilts towards me by what I assume is reactionary impulse. "Don't bullsh*t me. What's it feel like to be fine, then? Riddle me that with your selective silver tongue." He now abjectly stares at me.

"Oh? I could ask the same of you and our answers would surely differ." My voice remains glacial and detached.

He pulls out his phone. "'Kay. We'll text each other our answers. When we're both done, we'll send them at the same time." He begins to click his fingers away at the screen of his phone.

"Be it so."

'What's it feel like to be fine, then?' All I can deduce is that it wouldn't hurt so damn much every day. Ah. Pain. Does he expect me to say the ameliorated versions of my predicaments? If I am already in that state, then a positive outlook might perhaps be my best option. Such pitifully idyllic thinking, but...

Pointing my eyes skyward to the pastel blue of the sky dappled faintly with wisps of a feathery, watery white, I retrieve my phone from my pocket. Looking down at the glossy black screen reflecting the sky above, I turn it on to see a few missed messages on my lock screen.

Yaoyorozu: Since we didn't have the opportunity to talk today, how are you?

Me: I'm all right. Thank you for asking.

I flinch at the sight of Endeavor's name.

Endeavor: Whete the f*ckn are you?

Endeavor: Worthoess disgrace. If you are not here for training in fiev minutes you will not wske up in the korning.

Endeavor: I will fidn you and beat you kyself.

Your messages are a disgrace to my eyes—grammar included. Even so, I should still return home. He must be...lonely. Why do I still allow myself to care? Should the traumatizing impact of what he did not outweigh this undertone of sympathy? If it's okay for me to become what I want to be, and if it's okay for me to become a Hero, it's okay to want to save you, right? I suppose that does not erase how I wish never to be associated with you or the merciless memories that are conjured up solely by your name, but I could never forgive myself if I do not at least endeavor—how foolish of me—to right my wrongs.

Once I finish my message, I look up to Bakugou, and we deliver our messages simultaneously. I now read over Bakugou's description of being fine:

I aim to give each day my best shot—you only live once, so why not go out with a damn good boom in a sense of accomplishment? I look forward to that. Setbacks make me stronger, and hell does it feel good when I overcome them. I'm glad to be alive with the people around me, even if I'm an asshole to almost everyone. Sometimes it's rough, but I won't let anything stop me from being the best, so I give each day my best shot.

Bakugou reads mine out loud. "It's calming. It feels warm. It's why I'm here. It's why I can get out of bed." He pauses, finished with reading my piece. "That... I'll admit it isn't what I expected to see, but you still don't convince me. You don't have to be fine to feel calm and warm—you probably feel that way when you're cutting." Hearing Bakugou utter the word of my fault, guilt sinks my stomach with a boiling, thick fluid. "You don't have to be fine to be alive. You don't have to be fine to get out of bed. You don't have to be fine. It's fine not to be fine. But it isn't fine to treat yourself like you're a worthless sack of sh*t. You're not. I see you as a human being and as my f*cking friend. You're invaluable to me. I can't f*cking replace you. If I never get to see you again, I will sob. I will be f*cking devastated. You can bet I'd end up lashing out at everyone. So when you act like you don't mean a damn thing, it makes me feel like sh*t. It makes me wonder if my efforts mean nothing to you."

Hearing all of that... I want you to forget about me. I can't help myself, Bakugou. Even though I know it hurts you, I keep doing it. I don't have long to live. If I weigh you down with guilt and worry—

A hand slips into mine. "Hey. But that doesn't mean you don't make me happy." He flashes me a smile—not a smirk or a devious grin, but a smile. "Now, let's get something to eat. Whaddya say?" I nod slowly.

My cheeks feel warm. My heart feels warm. My fingers are tingling. I feel warm. It feels pleasant. I like this. But...what gives me the right to feel it?

- Month 1, Week 3 -

After shoveling my belongings into a suitcase to last for two weeks, I rendezvous with Bakugou and proceed to U.A. He asks me how I feel about two weeks without school, training, or Endeavor. I explain that I'm both grateful and skeptical regarding the unorthodox reprieve from my daily routines. Arriving at U.A., we're greeted by the majority of our classmates with hands occupied by bags, suitcases, or phones. Aizawa inquires as to how I'm faring with the traveling ordeal, and I answer that I'm fine; he seems quite dubious about my reply.

While Mineta visibly yet silently fantasizes about his lewd scenarios, Midoriya approaches me with his charming grin. "Looking forward to the trip, Todoroki-kun?" I nod. "What are you most looking forward to, then? I can't wait to swim with you guys in the ocean. Huh. Um..." His eyes trace along my body from head to toe. "The only times I've seen you without a long-sleeved shirt were at the Sports Festivals. I'm sure you look great, Todoroki-kun! I-I hope that doesn't sound weird."

I thrust the blame for the scars on my arm onto a villain attack. I suppose that, to myself, I am my own villain, so I was not incorrect. Damn. I will... Damn. Damn! I would seem highly suspicious for refusing to wear appropriate clothing for the weather, and for refusing to join in on their activities. All the scars... What do I do?

I scratch at my arm. "Not at all, but I prefer long-sleeved clothing. I suppose I look forward to the change in atmosphere. What do you most look forward... You already answered that. Sorry." My eyes flick to the floor as a familiar stirring flutters in my chest.

From the corner of my eye, I can see Midoriya's head tilting a bit. "Is there anything you want to talk about?" His compassionate voice soothes my ears, yet it acts as a pin pushing into my chest laden with yellow petals.

I need to leave. "I'm fine, Midoriya," I sigh, inwardly maundering about how often I claim to be fine.

"I-I don't mean to pry or anything, but—"

Please, stop asking. "I'm. Fine. My apologies if that sounded rude." I now dismiss myself from Midoriya, turning on my heel as I stride off to the bathroom.

Once in the bathroom, I sprint to the nearest stall and crouch over the toilet, ejecting petals, leaves, and blood from my lungs. Now gasping for breath after quite the coughing fit, I brace myself on the sharp coolness of the metal wall of the stall. With pulsating vision and burning, taut lungs, I glimpse at the blood diluting with the water filled with medium-sized discs of yellow and green before they all drown beneath the current of a small whirlpool.

"Todoroki-kun?" asks the harrowed voice of Midoriya.

Why must they always follow me? With raspy breaths, I murmur, "Wh-What?" Standing shakily, I unlock the door and step outside, continuing to pant heavily.

"W-Well," he stutters, fiddling with his fingers, "I was really worried when you walked out like that. I thought I'd offended you in some way. And then I-I heard erratic breathing, and I thought you might've been having a panic attack. I didn't mean to seem intrusive." His large, verdant eyes meet mine.

"I'm fine. It's fine. It's all...fine. I apologize for my lack of variance."

"Are you okay, though? I-I thought I also heard you coughing. Are you sick? Um. I'm not a germaphobe or anything, but are you sure you're well enough for—"

That is quite enough from you. "Midoriya..." I sibilate with a jagged placidity likened to polished fangs. "I would prefer not to reiterate myself. I'm all right. Or do you simply not comprehend my words?" I press my middle and forefinger directly above my right eye.

His expression oscillates between solace and worry. "You look tired..." he continues to press. "More tired than before. Have you not been sleeping well? Todoroki-kun, I'm worried about you."

No... Why do you worry? Why do you care? Why? Leave me be. Let me die alone, as I deserve. Please, stop. Stay your tongue and thoughts. Pry further no more. One too many have become aware of what I worked to conceal. I need not another. Stop.

"I've been training," I reply, monotonous as ever. "Fret not over me." My fingers ghost my sleeve. "We should be heading back." While I turn to leave, a hand grasps my left forearm. "Ah!" I submissively sink to the floor, steeling myself for a domineering voice to assault my ears and glass to bite into my shoulders and back.

Don't touch me. Not like that. Not like that. Not like that! My thoughts are muddled with the distorting sounds echoing through my ears. Endeavor. Dirty. Clicking. It doesn't... Where? His hands. Tracing. Feeling. Stroking. Stop. Stop!

Melting my thoughts away is a scorching bullet of sound. "OI!" inveighs a livid Bakugou, who I look up at to see him shoving Midoriya up against the wall. "Don't you f*cking touch him, Deku!" Pinning Midoriya back with ghastly knuckles and sharp breaths, he secures both of the greenette's hands in his.

With magnified eyes, Midoriya yelps, "K-Kacchan! I'm sorry! I didn't mean anything! I was just w-worried!" He squirms in Bakugou's grasp.

"Bakugou, stop..." I plead, picking myself up from the floor with quaking knees. "You'll hurt him."

Hearing my whispers of desperation, Bakugou's grip loosens until Midoriya finally slips free. "Tch. Get lost, Deku," he snarls, huffing with a lour. "Never f*cking touch him again." He eyes Midoriya from the corner of his eye until the student with freckles timorously departs. "I know. I shouldn't have done that. I couldn't control myself." He grinds his fist against the wall, pressing his forehead against the cool surface as well. "I was...scared sh*tless, okay? f*ck."

Watching as he wrings his rage from his system, I wrap my arms around his torso. Uncertain of what to say in a placating manner, I sigh softly along his shoulders.

This is what he would do for me, right? I've no words to console him as he does to me. It's okay for me to hug him, right? He's warm. I can feel every breath he takes. I can feel his heart. His heartbeat is such a pleasant melody, whereas mine is quite the dolorous symphony of rancor. I understand his desire to lend a hand, but I cannot fathom why he would want to give me his hand. I like this feeling of hugging him from its warmth and comfort, yet when he hugs me, I feel as though I don't deserve it. Hugging him, I suddenly feel guilty and uncomfortable. I don't like the idea of being loved. What gives me the right to be loved? If love is truly what I feel for you, then why does it hurt so much to feel it? I feel so hollow. So empty. So vacant. But I feel warm.

"Hey," he finally whispers, lifting his head from the wall and gradually turning to face me. "Thanks, you ass. We're probably holding up the damn line. Let's go. Move your ass." He motions for me to first leave, so I follow his implicated command.

Once we arrive back at the classroom, sure enough, we are the last two the class is waiting for. Seeing me enter the room, Ashido gasps, "You two were totally making out. You walked in before Bakugou!" She smiles jovially.

"Dream on, Pinky," Bakugou spits, crossing his arms defiantly. "I'd sooner lick the f*cking dirt."

"Making out?" I question indifferently.

Uraraka chimes in, chuckling, "You know what she means, Todoroki-kun!" She slaps her hand against Ashido's by their palms connecting.

I lift my brows a bit. "I'm very confused."

"Someone needs to teach this precious child what emotions are," Ashido sighs with a grin. "When was the last time you had a different expression from the one you always have?"

I'm exhausted from feeling emotion. I would prefer not to receive any lessons pertaining to it. My heart aches simply thinking about emotion. I feel sick.

After quite the voyage to our destination that I acted as though I simply slept through, our class files out into the balmy breeze of the town residing by the ocean. The quaint town with a common theme of its buildings being painted in various shades and styles including blue, white, gray, green, and yellow certainly captivates the eye.

"We're here!" Hagakure exclaims, enthralled by the aesthetic scenery.

"It's...very bright," Tokoyami remarks, and Dark Shadow seconds.

Iida now begins to slice the air with the robotic motions of his arms. "Remember to be on your best behavior! We may be on vacation, but we must still remember our manners! Thank you for this trip, Aizawa-Sensei!" He bows rapidly, almost as though his upper half is swinging on a hinge.

"Yes, thank you very much, Aizawa-Sensei!" Yaoyorozu cheers with manifest gratitude.

Once we've all been checked in and receive our maps marked with our house locations, house numbers, and combinations for our houses, Aizawa informs us that we will all meet together this afternoon for a mandatory hour of supervised pool or beach fare—we are apparently required to partake in this activity daily for attendance and safety purposes. Afterwards, we are to all meet for a meal as a class; this meal is not a recurring, mandatory event, however.

So, in an hour, we will meet up at this beach. Right. Then, we are to eat at a place renowned for its handmade pizza. I see. I strongly dislike it when my food is hot. I still feel relatively full from when I ate this morning. I don't want to eat again. I do like eating, but it's become more and more of a chore. I also strongly dislike the feeling of being completely full. I must be quite persnickety when it comes to my eating habits.

"Ready?" Bakugou questions, reeling me back into the ocean of reality. "C'mon." I follow in his lead through the afternoon sun shedding its heat down on the town. "Damn, it's hotter than I anticipated. A damn shame that I can't blow anyone up. But, hey. Sometime, since I know there's no way in hell you're gonna show your scars to anyone, I wanna take a dip with ya in the ocean. Wait. sh*t. They'd probably hurt like hell." I place my right hand on his neck and activate my Quirk to a minute degree. "Damn, that feels nice..."

I consciously feel along my arm with my hand, considerably abashed by the inextricable quandary I've racked myself with. "I'll be fine. I'd like that." Digging my fingers through my right pocket, I extract my vibrating phone; the caller ID on the screen is none other than Endeavor. "Yes?" I sigh.

"Why have you not been responding to the texts I've sent you?" he demands, his voice leaden with subdued hostility and simmering curiosity. "Where have you been, Shoto?"

He's sober, but it seems he is unable to recall what transpired that night. "I've been busy. It doesn't matter. You wouldn't remember my location, even if I told you. Quite candidly, you are a thief. Perhaps I am varnishing the event implicated to be in question. I can never retrieve or recover what you defiled." Ending our call, I cup my left hand around my left eye.

I want to save him, yet I am always such a cold, belligerent animal when I speak to him. Is this not what my typical persona entails for my behavior around others? Only around a select few will I allow myself to... I am disgusting.

"Was that who I f*cking think it was?" Bakugou queries, his voice a tempestuous storm surging through the amicable air. "The hell did he want?"

Although discountenanced by the mere thought of Endeavor, I retain my phlegmatic aura. "A bagatelle," I mutter.

He sighs softly. "Todoroki, it isn't to me. I know you know that. I've opened you up this much, but I've still got a ways to go. Hey. Thanks...for being alive. Really. Without you now, I just can't f*cking imagine it. I... Oi. This is our house. Damn. It looks nice. You wanna open it? Here." He hands me a small slip of paper with our house combination on it.

Pinching the paper between my thumb and index finger, I glance down at it and mentally read: #0120. Simple enough, I think while punching in the code into the door. It seems vaguely reminiscent of something. It's familiar, yet I've no recollection of it. How peculiar. A series of swift mechanical whirs and groans ring out softly before a click instinctively alerts me that the door is unlocked. Pulling the cool, metal handle, I step into quite the luxurious, beach-themed house.

"Damn. Whole place is ours, too," Bakugou remarks with a gratified smirk. "Just you and me here." His eyes dart from the ceiling to the floor, from wall to wall, and decoration to essential furniture piece.

The large white tiles on the floor distort the reflected light from the ceiling lights into wavy, glowing frills. Strung across the walls are seashells of varying sizes and shapes that I assume to be real. Past the entryway and into the kitchen and living room area is a glass back door allowing throngs of straw-colored sunlight to drown the floor and tickle the air with its fickle, translucent ribbons. Facing towards the entryway from the back door are two doors; one is on the side of the house with the living room and the other is on the side with the kitchen.

After setting down our belongings and somewhat settling in, Bakugou claims the room nearest the kitchen, and I claim the room nearest the living room. In each of our rooms is a separate bathroom, and for that, I am extraordinarily grateful.

Now changing into swimming trunks and swapping my shirt with a thin, white sweatshirt with sections of pale blue at the sleeves, hood, and hem that rides at my hips. I walk out of my room to see Bakugou with only swimming trunks on. Seeing him as free and natural as he currently is causes my heart to heighten its drumming.

He smirks at me, playfully rolling his eyes. "You look ridiculous. Kidding. Maybe not... Hey, since you never show your legs, I forgot you had them." His smirk sunders into grim neutrality. "Oi. How do you plan to explain those?"

"sh*t," I murmur under my breath, having forgotten about the old scars on my legs.

His brows raise. "Hah! Did you just f*ckin' say 'sh*t,' you levelheaded ass?" He clears his throat. "Damn. Those are some nasty scars. They don't take away from your natural charm at all, though. You sure you're comfortable showing those?" Scrupulously moving from scar to scar on my legs, his head tilts with his eyes.

The pungent bitterness of guilt benumbs my taste. I feel sick every single time I taste it. It's such a thick, viscous fluid that coats my insides with its noxious contaminants.

Without a word, I return to my room and slip on a pair of jeans before returning to Bakugou. "I do look ridiculous. My Quirk must be serendipitous—I can endure extreme heat and extreme cold." Closing my left hand into a fist, I shake my head. "I'm ready." I follow behind Bakugou out the door.

"If they pester you about how you look, I'll beat their asses. They don't know the sh*t you've been through. No good's gonna come if they press for an answer that I'm damn sure you don't wanna say."

Bakugou...

As expected, the two of us are some of the later arrivals at the beach Aizawa instructed us to gather at. Aizawa eyes my clothing—with good reasoning—and offers me a reaffirming nod.

"Kid, if anyone attempts to pressure you into anything, I want you to tell me. All right?" I present a saturnine nod. "If you feel uncomfortable at any time, I'm here for you to talk to. As long as someone accompanies you, you're allowed to leave before the hour is up."

I feel acute discomfort as it is, I cogitate while sitting down at a wooden picnic table. Midoriya seems to be progressively working towards unsnarling the enigma that is me. He commented on how I always wear long-sleeved clothing. When Bakugou tore Midoriya from grasping my arm, my chest was pounding fervently. Taking him into an embrace felt so right but so wrong. I feel as though I'll shudder if I am to be hugged again. It once felt so nice. Now, however, I feel sticky and oily, and overall, I simply feel filthy.

I stare down at the wavy strings running through the thick wood of the table, jolted back into reality when Kirishima saunters up to me, who's sitting across from Bakugou. "Hey, Bakubro! Hey, Todoroki!" he greets us, overzealous as always.

"Yeah, sh*tty Hair? What do you need?" Bakugou scoffs, leaning onto his arm atop the table.

"Not a beach kind of guy, Todoroki?" Glancing up to Kirishima's voice, his refulgent red hair swaying above his bare shoulders captures my attention as I shake my head. "Aww, that's a bummer. You're not hot in all that?" I shake my head again. "You're pretty manly for wearing all that! Anyways, you guys wanna join me and a few others for some volleyball?" I nod again. "You're really not much of a talker, but that's also manly! You're awesome, Todoroki."

You would praise me for such paltry matters? Even if it feels nice, somewhere in my heart, it feels like an incendiary bullet transfixing and searing a place where none can truly reach. I would prefer to be hated than loved.

Disregarding the ineluctable comments pertinent to my unusual attire for the beach, the volleyball game somewhat suppresses my maelstrom of thoughts. Likely due to Bakugou being the "hardcore alpha male" that he is, as referenced from Kaminari, our team meets an indubitable victory. Once the game has ended and the majority slinks off to rest and rehydrate, Yaoyorozu walks up to me.

"You're an exceptional volleyball player," she chuckles, sitting beside me at the table I'd settled myself at previously.

Although internally nettled by the compliment, I plaster on an amiable facade. "Thanks. Ah. I would practice with my siblings when I was younger." Meeting her jet-black eyes, I find myself reminiscing over my childhood days prior to being locked away in solitude and interminable hours of training.

With a smile, she turns to face the ebbing waves of the ocean. Like a yawning gale of frost, the waves lapping up at the shore slather across a vast sea of yellow minerals and soak them down to a grayish-brown. Glittering blindingly with stars of white from the afternoon sun kissing its surface and choppy peripheries, the silver-blue waves of the ocean twirl and curl in translucent arcs adorned with whirling white ribbons of seafoam.

"This is my first time at the beach," I sigh, observing as seagulls scour the sand for any critters they might find. "It's pleasant, yet it reminds me of how much time I have left." My eyes flick down to my right hand.

Once I expire, I will be unable to share these pleasant memories with Bakugou. When my consciousness remains no longer, my eyes will fail to see the colors you gave to me. After I've fallen through the clouds to reach a realm beyond this world, I wonder... Will I remember you?

Yaoyorozu's smile becomes quite rueful. "I'm glad you're able to experience this, then. Todoroki-kun, you say that as though you don't intend to receive the surgery if... What do you plan to do? I apologize if I've asked before."

I detest the fact that the world truly can be quite beautiful. "I don't know, but I would like the surgery to be a last resort." My eyes drift to Bakugou, who is currently drinking a bottled beverage that I assume is water.

After a few minutes, our class sits down at a few tables strung up together at the restaurant Aizawa detailed us on. While Bakugou reserves a seat for me, I proceed to the bathroom to disgorge the plant matter and blood from my system again. Once I return to the table and sit at the corner seat Bakugou saved for me, I thank him.

"Man, I'm starving!" Kaminari announces while we receive our menus.

"Same here," Kirishima chimes in.

The majority of the class agrees with Kaminari, so when we finally receive our orders, that same majority seems to be the first to indulge in devouring their meals. Kirishima and Kaminari practically wolf down their meals with audible satisfaction. I stare down at my plain cheese pizza, uncertain of what to make of the odd-looking, foreign food.

White cheese and red sauce... How familiar. The oily residue. The red oozing forth. Endeavor... Endeavor holding me, touching me, in me...

As pictorial images of perfectly revolting scenes form and eventually culminate in my mind, I flinch at the hand gently gripping onto my shoulder. With vision stained by splotches of white, I snap my head around to face Bakugou. Upon seeing the familiar, placid features of the ash-blonde, I begin to compose myself again.

With patient, imperial ruby eyes, he sighs, "You were dead-ass zoned out." He removes his hand from my shoulder and glances down at my untouched food. "I doubt it's still hot." I shake my head with my left eye twitching lightly. "sh*t... Hey." Beneath the table, he insinuates his hand into mine. "It's gonna be okay," he whispers, "but I want you to take a few bites."

Repulsive. Filthy. Filthy. Filthy. So filthy.

Contaminating my relatively clean hands with the adhesive oils and grease from the pizza, that alone feels like a punch to the stomach.

His... He... In...

The appetizing taste of the food in my mouth is mired by the filthy mud of my nauseating memories and their connotations. Forcing myself to swallow down a single slice, I hang my head and face my lap in an attempt to still the odious churning of my stomach. Internally reminding myself to hold it down to preserve my strength before my condition deteriorates further, I still cannot erase the thoughts of Endeavor entering my body.

"The only reason someone would f*ck trash as worthless as you would be to beat you from the inside."

I can't. I can't.

Rushing with a wide gait into the bathroom, I can foretell that my body will flush itself out, but I find myself augmenting this process by once again jamming my fingers down my throat until I've vomited everything up. Panting heavily as a residual burn seizes my throat, I inwardly rebuke myself for succumbing to this again. Thoroughly scrubbing my hands and scraping my nails from one hand under the other to loosen and wash away the grease beneath, I repeat the process again to ensure I've eliminated the filthy residue. Staring at myself in the mirror, I notice the tears forming in my eyes; I wipe them away and blink perfervidly.

In a daze, I stumble back out to our table and take my seat with my gaze lowered to evade any eyes staring at me.

"Doin' all right?" Bakugou whispers, and I respond by nodding. "Did it taste bad?" I shake my head. "We'll talk about this later."

While we stand up to leave and return to our houses, I cling closely to Bakugou as we depart. For the first half of the fifteen-minute walk, we continue on in the silence of the faded melody of nature. This silence is splintered, however, once my phone vibrates in my pocket.

Midoriya: Can I ask you something? It's a personal question, so you don't have to answer, but I still want to ask. I was going to when we were all leaving, but I didn't want to pull you away from Kacchan.

"That ass ain't texting you, is he?" Bakugou growls, his sonorous voice crackling in my ears.

"No. It's Midoriya," I utter without a vestige of emotion poking at my words.

Me: Go ahead.

Bakugou clicks his tongue. "Deku, huh? The hell did he want with you when I found the two of you like that? What, you like him or something?" His head tilts away from me.

While awaiting Midoriya's question, I reply, "I'm very fond of him. I can use my left half as I do now." My phone buzzes in my hand.

Midoriya: Are you starving yourself?

No, but it certainly seems that way. Additionally, I am noticeably thinner. I would like to gain that back, yet it sounds incredibly tedious to do so.

Me: No.

"That so? Well, I'm very fond of you," he utters in a whisper. "I f*cking hate to admit it, but you've changed me one helluva lot—for the better. I love...being around you, 'kay? I admit that." His bottom lip curls up a bit to form a scowl.

You love...being around me? I feel warm. My cheeks feel warm. I feel so warm. Despite that, I feel empty. I feel as though an insatiable void fills my chest.

Midoriya: I don't know if I believe that.

Me: What would you like me to say, then?

As we open the door to our house, I force an emotionless chuckle from my lips. "I made you soft?"

"No!" he snarls innocuously. "You asshat!" He roughly tousles my hair.

Midoriya: I don't know? But you left in a hurry for the bathroom and didn't even eat much.

I don't want to talk about that. "I love being around you as well," I state gingerly, raising my hand a bit as he opens his mouth to speak. "f*ck you, too."

"Don't just f*cking predict what I'm gonna say and... Tch. Don't just say that sh*t with your blank-ass, unamused face."

Me: I was reminded far too strongly of an event I wish not to recall. I can understand why the restaurant is renowned for its handmade cookery, but all I will say is that I cannot forget. If you truly do not believe me, ask Bakugou. Midoriya, I assure you that I eat.

Midoriya: Okay, I will. Thank you. I just don't want you doing that to yourself.

After perhaps an hour of our continued unpacking and relaxation, Bakugou asks if I'm ready to haul my ass out to the ocean. I shake my head vertically, and with that, the two of us stroll into the brilliant gold of the late-afternoon sky. Filaments of gold and cerulean weld together with a hard orange to paint the lucent canvas overhead.

Stepping onto the warm sand slathered before the gray waves steeped in tangerine, I survey my surroundings to ensure that the two of us are alone. Confirming our solitude, I timorously step free from my jeans pooled at my feet and pull my sweatshirt up over my head. Now with my clothes clumped together in my arms, I set them on the grass outside of the reach of the sand.

Scrutinizing my body, Bakugou grins as a light dust of pink mantles his cheeks. "Hot damn. Oi, look at me. Stay your eyes on mine this time. Lemme tell you something, Todoroki... You're f*cking beautiful, okay? Handsome as f*ck, okay? Your scars are a permanent part of you. You wouldn't be you without those scars, and you're f*cking perfect. Yeah, I'm serious... Don't tell me I'm soft again. I mean it. I mean all of it, dammit." His toes dig into the sand.

I feel so warm. I feel as though I'm seated next to a bonfire. Your words make my skin tingle with warmth. Despite that, they feel so hollow and sharp. It hurts, but it feels good. It feels good, but it hurts. How exhausting. Thinking and traveling in transparent circles is also exhausting.

Internally perturbed by the fact that Bakugou expatiated his intimate thoughts pertaining to me, I retain my superficial equanimity. "You're...very sweet. Surely you jest." I lightly scratch at my arm, glancing at the multiplicity of scars littering it.

His breaths deftly stroke my ear. "I meant every word." He now pulls back from me, running his hand along his neck. "Now, c'mon. Get in there before I chuck you in myself." He eyes the curling waves sliding up to the shore and shattering across the sand.

My feet sink into the cool, somewhat sticky sand licked by the ocean water. Leaving footprints as a tapering wave encapsulates my ankles, I flinch at the new sensation of the cool water filled with tumbling grains of sand rushing past my feet and receding back. Before long, my knees are resting beneath the surface of the swaying sea. Glancing at the movement I detect on my left, Bakugou motions for me to follow him. I continue to wade into the ocean lightly jerking my body back and forth to reach Bakugou, and by the time I do, I realize now that my feet no longer touch the sand and kelp below. My body bobs and drifts beside Bakugou from the tide.

"Now I know you can swim," he cackles, gently flicking a splattering stream of salty water at my chest. "What did you think?" He now flicks his fingers at the surface of the water weaving up and down in rhythmic arcs.

I scratch at my scars and recent wounds. "With you here with me, I like it." I return a flick of water at him, and in the kingdom of thought Bakugou rules over, this seems to be a declaration of war.

Splashing my entire front half with a skyward chop to the water, he soon drenches my upper half as I gradually follow suit. While gazing off into the distance for a moment, my face is slapped with something slimy and thin, yet rough. A torrent of laughter erupts from Bakugou as I nonchalantly peel off a clump of seaweed strands from my face. The salty taste of the ocean that's smeared across my lips causes me to lick away the cool saltiness from them.

"Your laugh is quite the charm to listen to," I casually remark, unintentionally severing his geyser of abrupt emotion. "I don't think I've heard you laugh like this before."

"Oh, shut it. You looked absolutely ridiculous like that. Couldn't help myself. Seeing your calm-ass reaction was priceless."

Once the two of us return to the shore, Bakugou takes my hand in his and guides me along a dirt pathway to a minor precipice overlooking the sloshing waves of the ocean. With features gleaming in a rich, radiant gold in the twilight, he comes to a halt at the peak of the relatively small cliff. Peering out into the ocean gilded by the ribbons of light seeping faintly into it and being reflected back among the shattered shards of the darkening sky, the crescent blade of the blazing sun captivates my attention. Now sitting down beside Bakugou, we watch the gradual descent of the scintillating sun into the vast stretches of shadow below the twilight-stained bend of the horizon. Vacantly staring off into the trickling curves of orange and tangerine, the song of the imposing ocean hums in our ears. I lean my head on Bakugou's shoulder, inhaling deeply at the resplendent grandeur illuminating my eyes with vivid, autumnal hues.

Staring silently atop the warm precipice, the clouds are soon dyed with a deepening lavender and stroked with saffron. Around those jovial clouds, the gradient sky hugs them close.

As the sun thins into a searing smile, Bakugou's voice enamors my ears. "Hey... Can I tell you something?" I can feel his chest inflating and deflating as I give him a perfunctory nod. "Right. 'Kay... Look. I..." His fist clamps shut and squirms around a bit, so I place my hand on his; his fist relaxes and his fingers intertwine with mine. "Todoroki, I...I love you." My eyes wrench open at his statement as a serrated blade of guilt presses into my chest. "f*ck, uh. I f*cking love you. Not...as just a friend. Look. I-I guess what I'm asking is if you feel the same." His eyes are glued to the ground sprinkled with flecks of orange.

A twilight truth you present to me that is destined to set me free. Why, then, does it feel as though I've been revoked of the ability to breathe? It burns. It hurts. My chest feels so heavy. I feel so warm. But it hurts. It hurts... Why does it hurt so much? The more affection you offer to me, the more pain I feel. Your love is what's killing me, Bakugou. Even so...should I not be condoned to leave behind me this disease?

Suffocating in my vacillation, I wrap my arms around Bakugou. I would hurt him if I declined. "I do, Ba—"

My words are swallowed up by the warm, tender lips enveloping mine. Lifted up into Bakugou's embrace, he cradles me fast in his arms while avoiding my waist. Our lips gently mingle as our saliva is exchanged. His hand lightly grips my hair and fondles through it as his other hand firmly clutches my cheek. He tilts his head, deepening our kiss as a lusciously sweet sigh soughs through his nostrils.

If this is love, why do I feel so empty?

We simultaneously pull back for a transient moment before our lips reunite and fervently press together.

If this is love, why does my heart wail in agony?

With warm, effervescent friction buzzing between our dampened, slightly salty lips, Bakugou silently requests ingress into my mouth with his tongue.

If this is love...why can I feel a barrage of petals swelling in my lungs?

Meekly allowing Bakugou to do as he pleases with me, our tongues twist together in a warm, wet embrace of "love."

It hurts, Bakugou.

Enfolding his lips over mine once more, he twirls my hair through his fingers.

I feel as though I'll break down, Bakugou.

Hesitantly reciprocating his hand motions through my hair, my fingers weave through a damp deluge of warm filaments of ash-blonde.

I don't love you like you love me, K-Katsuki...

Despite his passionate, ethereal kisses and invigorating touch, I still feel a pang of obtrusive, rotting guilt jabbing at my heart.

...but that's all right.

As we both dither while slowly pulling back, the streaks of our hot breaths brush against our skin.

Because it's you...

He offers me a doting smile.

...it's all right.

I muster up an empty smile that swiftly falters.

I want you to be happy.

"What's wrong?"

As long as you're happy, that's enough for me.

"Nothing."

As long as you're happy, I don't mean a thing.

"Todoroki."

As long as you're happy, I'll be whatever you want me to be.

"Sorry. I'm not used to this." I rest my right hand on my left shoulder, faintly tracing my fingers down my arm. "I love you, Bakugou." Desiccated and saturnine, my words seem only to tear us both apart as tears prick my eyes again.

What gives me the right to love you?

As the embers of the sunset flicker and ebb away into the veil of the night, Bakugou presses me to his chest and rests my head over his shoulder. "I love you more, you asshat," he whispers, his voice a tender hum as his fingers cautiously massage my back. "If I'm going too quickly, tell me so I can take a step back. Don't be shy to voice how you really feel, 'kay? I f*cking love you, and I want you to be okay. I'll do whatever it f*cking takes to show you that."

Like hell I'm letting him walk towards the bridge. Ugh. f*ck it. I mean, I'll get to hold his hand. Christ, I'm going to be driven to insanity by my emotions. I'm just glad that I can hold his hand. I'm glad he's here. Even if he hurts inside, I'm glad he's alive. Now, why did you always come here? Why the hell you're here... Why the hell you're here... You're gonna break me with the things you say, Todoroki. That's something you'll have to figure out and discover. It's not something I can tell you. You have to decide for yourself why you're here. Damn. That hurt to think about. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to tell you, but I can't. I can't decide who you are. Whatever your reason is for continuing to live, though...you better embrace that.

I want to finally confess. Even if you're with Ponytail or Deku, I still want you to know how I feel. Calm yourself, Katsuki. Get it together. Goddamn... He's so f*cking perfect. Look at him, just standing here in the twilight like an angel with a heart of glass. My heart's pounding. C'mon, Katsuki. Say it. sh*t. Here goes nothing... I'm so f*cking nervous. Me? Nervous? Damn you. Your eyes are so beautiful. I'm f*cking head over heels. Say something. HOLY sh*t?! HOLY sh*t! Holy sh*t, holy sh*t. Holy sh*t, his lips are melting my mind. Is this a dream? This better not be a f*cking dream. I love you so damn much. If this isn't what love feels like, then... He's not too feisty or sloppy with his kisses. It feels like I'm dreaming. I'm kissing Shoto Todoroki. I'm kissing the ass that wouldn't show me his full power, yes, but he's my ass. Then what's with his frail, blatantly fake smile? Dammit, I hope I didn't make him uncomfortable. Take it slow, Katsuki. It'll take time for his mental scars to heal.

Chapter 8: The Last Letter

Chapter Text

Ordinary yellow pencil clutched in hand, Bakugou scribbles another line of notes down into his notebook. He stares down at the thick textbook beside him for a long moment, scrutinizing one small area of text with brows stretched out into bewilderment.

"Eh?" he groans, glancing back to his notebook. "The f*ck did that come from?" He curls the digits of his right hand against his forehead.

I tilt my head at him, splaying my fingers that grasp my own pencil. "Hm?" I hum tersely.

Tipping back his head, he sighs, "Just wondering where the f*ck these—" he points to a number immediately to the left of a variable— "numbers came from. How the hell do you go from that to this?" Scratching the back of his head, he expels an exasperated snort.

I lean up against him, pressing my shoulder against his to peer down at his notebook and textbook. "Hm." I scour the page a bit, following the processes that resulted in the numbers muddling Bakugou's brain. "It was squared, Bakugou." I gently kiss his earlobe. "Sorry. Ah. K-Katsuki..."

Assuaging the instantaneous pang of guilt jolting through my body from providing affection to him, he ruffles my hair. "You're so damn shy. My God, Shoto. It's all right. C'mon. Say my name like a normal human being." With an enchanting smirk, his eyes squint with an eerie magnetism emanating from them.

I glance down at the pencil laying loosely upright in my web of fingers. "Bakugou?" I meet his tantalizing eyes of scarlet again.

"Nah, dammit. Say my first name." With a certain gruffness to his voice, he playfully prods at me to obtain his desire.

When I say it, it sounds as though I am tarnishing his name. "Why?" I sigh, pulling out my phone as a vibration claws at my attention.

"You always say it all weird. Well. Not in a bad way, 'course. It's..." His cheeks are mantled with a vague hue of peach. "You sound adorable, 'kay? You're...really damn attractive when you show emotion, and you're really damn cute when you try to say my name" He covers his mouth with his hand a bit.

My cheeks feel as though spring sunlight is spilling down onto them. "K-Katsuki... I—"

"Christ, your stutter is f*cking adorable..." His resplendent cheeks of cherry appear almost as though they lick his ears.

"Kat... Katsuki. You're cute when you blush," I chuckle lightly, finally checking my phone.

Fuyumi: I'm coming home when you get back from your trip, Sho! I want to take you out to the café Mom would always take us to.

He turns his head away from my view, obscuring his burning blush from me. "Nope. Not cute, you ass. Don't...make sh*t up. Now, c'mere with your cute ass." His arm wraps around my shoulder as he pulls me in towards him to plant his lips on mine.

Even if I still appreciate the profound affection and attention, I despise the fact that it's love—especially knowing that I don't feel the same. It feels so nice... His tender, lush lips are like enveloping my own lips with sweet ice cream, yet warm. Although I do enjoy it, that does not dictate 'love,' does it?

Pulling back from our fastened lips, I offer a small, plaintive smile. Keeping my gaze low and directed at my desk, I transiently extricate myself from the asphyxiating clutches of eye contact.

"You always do that," he remarks with a grim raise of his brow. "You always give me such a poignant smile whenever I kiss you on the lips. Why?" His expression loosens up a bit.

I feel...guilty. "I've never been good at smiling." I run my hand over my opposite shoulder. "I don't like smiling, but you did say that I should smile more often." I force another smile onto my lips.

Bakugou places his forefingers on the tapered peripheries of my lips, shoving them upwards into my cheeks. "Your smiles might be pretty damn sad, but I still love them, Shoto. You just gotta practice. Yeah, it's hard when you don't like doing it, but that's just life. Hard to live when you don't want to, right? But you keep going, Shoto. Couldn't be more proud of ya. So, keep smiling." He smiles while staring at my lips held up by his fingers before releasing his grasp. "Try it again. Use me as a reference."

I could never replicate such an ethereal smile, I think while raising the corners of my twitching lips. "Hey, Todoroki-kun. Remember when you smiled at the Sports Festival during our match? I felt empowered seeing such a rousing smile. Smiling uplifts the people around you."

He stifles a laugh. "Oh. My. God. Shoto, I wish you could see your stupid-ass smile that I love. It's cute. It's weird. It's a start. But, most importantly, it's your smile." The ardor in his words threatens to addle my mind. "Enough of that torture. Thanks for the help, asshat." He runs his hand through my hair with perfunctory movements.

I clear my throat, somewhat stifling a cough from the petals impeding my lungs. "Yeah."

"You all right?" His head leans down to the side a bit.

I nod. "I haven't been thinking about that as much, either. It's...nice," I murmur, espying my own notebook as my stomach growls. "Yeah." My breaths become shallow to cause as little disturbance to the loose petals in my chest as possible.

I still think about it. Even though he loves me, I would not deign to love myself like that. Even though he reminds me that I'm perfect and shouldn't change who I am, I'm still flawed by the bullet holes that have become a part of me, and I wish that I could leave behind this filthy body. I'm selfish.

"No sh*t. Even just a little bit of pressure being taken off your chest makes it that much easier to breathe—to live. Now, what say eat dinner and—"

Covering my mouth with my hand, I swiftly take my leave for my bathroom and retch up the scarring petals and leaves torturing me from the inside. Squeezing them out clump by clump, I pant heavily, clutching at my burning, throbbing chest.

He reciprocated the love I seemingly had for him. Why am I still racked with this disease? Whenever I cough up these petals and leaves, it becomes quite the insidious feat to rid myself entirely of them.

Still breathing considerably leaden breaths, I soon walk back into my room to hear Bakugou's voice growling into my ears. "Seriously. You sound like sh*t. You can't be okay when you sound like that. But you said it ain't contagious?" With his arms and legs crossed, his eyes pin my gaze to the floor as I approach him.

"It's nothing, and it isn't contagious," I sigh, slipping my hands into the vacuous comfort of the pocket of my sweatshirt. "I'm hungry."

"f*ck that 'it's nothing,' but all right. Before you went and coughed up your insides, I was gonna say that we should invite some people over and have a game night. Whaddya say?"

I shrug. "I guess. Where—"

"Do you think I'd travel somewhere with you without being able to sort things out through beating your ass at All Might Kart? Hell nah!" His radiant smirk necessitates a smile on my end, so I attempt once more to smile. "I still love that sh*tty smile of yours." He gently taps my nose with his forefinger.

I don't like my smile whatsoever. Yours is so exuberant and alluring, even if sometimes done ostentatiously. I like your zesty smile, Katsuki.

After dinner, we soon receive incessant, hollow knocks from the front door as Midoriya, Kaminari, Kirishima, Ashido, Sero, Jirou, Tokoyami, and Uraraka file inside our temporary house. The "Bakusquad"—this epithet is provided by Kaminari—is practically instantaneous to become engrossed in the racing game Bakugou enjoys challenging me at and always winning. Meanwhile, Midoriya, Jirou, and Tokoyami begin to converse in the kitchen. I glance over towards the kitchen to see Uraraka timorously approaching the group, but soon shying away and backing herself towards me.

"Hey, Todoroki-kun," she sheepishly greets me, flicking her gaze back at the three in the kitchen once more. "I'm gonna guess this was Bakugou's idea, huh?" She dolefully glances at her hands before meeting my eyes again and assuming a facade of gaiety.

I nod. "Is something the matter?" I ask her, eyeing the three who are now chuckling over in the kitchen.

She shrugs a bit, retaining her smile. "No. I just wanted to talk to Deku-kun about something. I'm good, though, Todoroki-kun!" Despite the gleam of her smile, I can easily see through her act.

I'm not sure why, but...more often than not, I poke holes in others' walls and draw them out. They talk to me. I talk in response. They thank me. It's nice to help others. Some ask about me, but I always lie. When the spotlight is over my head, I perform perfectly, yet I offer the wrong performance.

I tilt my head a bit. "Are you certain?" I press to now gauge her reaction.

Her bottom lip rolls inwards. "Yup!" she replies, a bit delayed as she holds up her smile.

"If you would like to talk about something, I'll listen." With an insouciant stare, I track her fickle eyes.

Her jaw moves slightly as she nods. "Um. Actually, then, can I talk to you about something?" I nod, gesturing for her to follow me outside. "Thank you, Todoroki-kun... I just don't want to bother Deku-kun right now, but I do want to get it off my chest."

Closing the door as we sit below the forest of spiraling orange and yellow above, Uraraka sharply inhales, holding her breath for a moment. She now exhales, curling her hand into a fist by her neck and swiftly yanking it down in triumph.

"Okay," she whispers, seemingly to herself before turning to face me. "It's been...difficult here. I love the beach. The beach is my favorite place. I want my parents to be able to retire somewhere nice like this. It's so fun..." She glances down at the pavement at our feet. "I promised my parents I'd become a Hero and earn enough money for them to get the renovations they want, to be able to pay bills and have everything they need...and to retire without needing to worry about anything. Getting me into U.A. wasn't easy financially, and now that I'm here, I can't change my path. I-I promised them I'd become a Hero, after all, and I can't just throw away the money they invested for me to be here. Being here, though, at a place I know they'd love...makes me wonder if I'm good enough to live up to that. I know they wouldn't be mad at me, but I-I'd be furious with myself." Her hands curl into small fists in her lap as she stares down at them.

I see. Ah. Is that why you have a flip phone? Furious with yourself...

"Are my efforts here really enough to get me to where I want to be? I always give every training session my all—just like Deku-kun tells me—but I can't help feeling like...it's not enough. I have to get stronger. I h-have to. I have to be the Hero I want to be for their s-sakes and mine." As her voice begins to break a bit, small beadlets of a clear fluid pool at the corners of her eyes. "I know I've g-gotten stronger. I-I know...but is it e-enough? I don't want to l-let them down..." She wipes her tears with the backs of her hands, sniffling softly. "It's n-not very Hero-like of me to c-cry like this, huh?"

I shake my head. "Even Heroes cry when they need to." I pause for a moment. "We all have strengths and weaknesses. Those all differ from person to person. What you aspire to be might not be precisely where your greatest strength lies. It takes time to figure it out... Give it your best doing what you are here, Uraraka. That best is enough—more than enough. The experience gained along the way is what matters most, I'd like to think, rather than any reward at the end—that experience is the greatest reward. Continue to branch out to discover who you are. Perhaps there is another line of duty calling for you that you've not yet realized. Experience, Uraraka." I meet her gaze again to see jagged streams of tears trickling down her cheeks, so I open my arms to her. "If—"

Before I can finish my sentence, Uraraka pushes herself into my arms and clings to me with great tenacity. Her soft sniffles and light gasps fill my ears as I wrap an arm around her—I can see no wrong in a platonic embrace. Despite my immense distaste regarding physical touch, she coils her arms around my torso and shoulder, so I inwardly remind myself to remain composed while Uraraka allows herself to breathe again from the weight of the unshed tears and emotions that had been stopped up by her smile being lifted in a whirling torrent.

"Regardless of the standards, you will always be enough if you've given it your best shot," I continue to console her with the words that simply scrape across my mind like a myriad of paper cuts. "Be wary of how much pressure you put on yourself...before you drown and incapacitate your abilities to achieve the outcome you're fighting for. It's all right to take breaks. Your mental health is equally as important as your physical health, and they both affect each other. You are more than enough, Uraraka."

She finally pulls back from me, wiping her eyes again from having calmed down. "Thank you so much, T-Todoroki-kun. I'll try to keep those in mind... It's just hard when I've piled everything up like this. This last week here, I-I'm going to think of a plan for myself. To keep going...in a healthy way." Her eyes meet mine as she smiles ruefully. "You're really sweet at heart, Todoroki-kun. Thank you for convincing me to talk...and listening to all that I had to say. Y-You even let me hug you. It was really nice... I never would've thought you'd do that...but I feel a lot better now. So...is there anything bothering you?" She now returns to sitting beside me with her hands in her lap and red cheeks dusted with tear stains.

The fact that...I'm still alive. "Not particularly. Thanks," I reply, phlegmatic as ever while I trace my fingers along my arm.

"But...sometimes you look really sad. Bakugou's also always checking on you and giving you food. I've wanted to ask about that for a while, but I figured Bakugou knew what he was doing. I should've asked sooner."

I shake my head. "I'm all right," I assure her. "I have unpleasant memories surrounding my past, but that is behind me. The dorayaki Bakugou gives me is an inside joke... I believe that's what it is called. Thank you for asking." I soften my stony expression a bit.

I hate lying. I feel so sickeningly guilty. I'm sorry, Uraraka. I want you to feel better. I want you to love yourself and to treat yourself well. Typical, perhaps...but very true. I don't deserve to feel okay, even if somewhere deep within me, I want to be. I don't deserve it.

"Todoroki-kun?" chimes the harrowed voice of Uraraka, causing me to flinch a bit. "I'm so glad I get to call you my friend. I'm so glad you're in my class. I'm so glad to have met you." Her resolute smile reminiscent of Midoriya's smothers my mind with unsightly memories.

You shouldn't be. "Thank you, U—"

"So, I wanna make sure you're okay."

What?

"Todoroki-kun..."

I can feel twinges of pain jolting through my heart. It hurts. I abhor this feeling...of being loved. I feel like...the inside of me is an irate ocean tearing at the sands of my skin. It feels as though my heart is being enfolded into sandpaper to be ground away into dust. I hate this. Stop.

"...are you okay?"

If you want me to be okay, then...beat me, torture me, make me suffer for existing. Erase me...before I do it myself. Ah...

I nod, seemingly unfazed. "I am okay, Uraraka..." Without missing a beat, I act my part in the play of masquerades. "Nonetheless, we should head back inside." I nonchalantly get up to my feet and open the front door before she can object, yet I've ensured that my movements are perfunctory.

Once we re-enter the house, I gesture for Uraraka to walk ahead of me while I attempt to collect my thoughts. Swishing, swirling, and whirling, the thoughts plaguing my mind provide me with the false sensation of being underwater. I slink down against the wall towards the floor, pressing my hand firmly against my pulsing head. Commanding myself to preclude the event of capitulating to my throbbing desire to tear open my skin with a blade until I forget, I pull out my phone.

Don't be so f*cking selfish, I revile myself with whetted words circulating only through the abstruse reservoir of fluctuating thought known as my mind. What gives me the right to feel this way? To want to die so damn bad? To mutilate myself beyond recognition? Nothing. I have no right to feel like this, yet I do feel like this. Why does it hurt so much? Forget, forget, forget... Scars, blood, cuts, blades, impulse, desire... Forget.

With quivering digits cupped around my phone, I tilt the black, somewhat reflective screen to reflect my face. Glimpsing into the rectangular world tinted considerably by translucent charcoal, the nebulous, filthy creature reflected back at me injects into my mind the impulse to freeze, incinerate, and crush my phone with as much strength as I can muster in order to obliterate the foul creature in it. Before I can impetuously obey my thoughts, however, a hand waves across the screen of my phone; my attention jerks up to search for the owner of the hand.

"Kirishima?" I inquisitively gasp with eyes fleetingly overwrought and full before I internally admonish my behavior and correct myself to assume my reserved demeanor. "Is there something you need?"

"Well, are you doing all right there, man?" he asks, and it takes me a moment to process his words. "You looked kinda distressed?" He tilts his head.

Compose yourself, keep your cool, suppress the thoughts and emotions, think rationally... "I'm doing all right here," I answer. "My sister is coming home this week. I haven't seen her in quite some time." Unvarnished and lacking emotion, my words leave no indication of my inner pandemonium of entropy.

Kirishima smiles, flashing his white-as-snow teeth. "Oh, that's awesome! Okay, so that wasn't bad distress or anything. I was worried about you for a minute... Anyways, Bakubro wants to see you." He extends his hand to me, and I bite my lower lip as I grasp his hand and pull myself up to my feet.

While I part ways with Kirishima, I gingerly approach Bakugou, who's standing with a red can of soda in his hand by the glass back door allowing orange threads of light to cascade into the house. He faces the television flashing with harlequin flashes of color and light until I enter his peripheral vision.

"Oi," he calls to me, pressing his soda can to his lips afterwards and sipping the effervescent liquid inside. "You holdin' up with all the people here?"

How many times must I be asked how I'm doing? "Yeah. I'll admit...it's loud." I lightly scratch at my arm.

"Hey." He draws himself up against my ear. "I love you to f*cking pieces, and I want you to be comfortable, dammit." He now steps back.

I sigh, "Don't be foolish." I mouth to him that I love him, too. "I'll get used to it. I think of it as building resistance to future scenarios akin to this." My icy gaze settles on the floor.

With a nettled lour, Bakugou softly snorts. "Tch. Guess you're not wrong, Icyhot. Still... If it's too much, I'm not gonna make you suffer, 'kay?" He takes another sip of his soda before tipping back the can in alignment with his head until only a few residual drops remain. Crushing the can down into an aluminum pancake of red and silver, he tosses the disc towards the recycling bin and successfully lands the crumpled can into the bin with a few clunks.

"I would've rinsed it out and left it as it was," I comment aridly.

"Feels nice to crush them. It's satisfying to squish them down like they don't mean a thing. Rinse them? Whole lotta work for a whole lotta nothin'. They don't need to be pretty where they're going. You want me to start doin' it, though, then I'll work on it."

Katsuki... Rinse them to clear up the residue and don't crush them to make the process easier on the other end of this. My patience dwindles. I do not want to hear anything remotely similar to the queries of how I'm doing, if I'm okay, and if anything is going on. I feel as though I will snap as it is. Quite the mercurial person I am at times, but aren't we all?

As I open my mouth to speak, Jirou strolls up to me with her illuminated phone in hand. "Hey, Todoroki, can I ask you a question?" She glances up to me with her midnight-purple hair tinged in filaments of orange from the sunlight flowing through the glass back door.

Bakugou shoves his hands into his pockets, giving me a flick of his brows before he returns to his squad in the living room area.

"Hm?"

"What kind of music do you usually listen to? Or what kind of music do you prefer?" Although her expression seems relatively neutral, her eyes seem to be looking anywhere but at me. "I'm just taking a quick poll." She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear.

Preceding my response is an extensive moment of silence. "I don't really listen to music," I reply, "but classical music is pleasant—it's calming. Will this answer suffice?"

She nods, typing something into her phone before gently picking at her nails. "Thanks. You don't really seem like the type, but I guess you also do seem like the type. I like listening to classical music sometimes, but pop is more my style." Her eyes briefly meet mine before they swiftly retreat down to her phone.

It's as though she has no intention of looking me in the eyes. "I see. I like your voice, Jirou. Your performance during the school festival last year was impeccable." I nod.

Faint splotches of peach mantle her cheeks as she flicks one of her earphone jacks with her thumb. "Th-Thanks... I don't think it was impeccable, but, I mean, hearing it from you means a lot. Um..."

"You seem hesitant to speak to me," I remark.

Her eyes widen a bit as she takes a minor step back. "Oh, y-you noticed? Well, I guess you're kinda intimidating to think about trying to talk to?" She taps her foot against the floor in a slow rhythm.

Intimidating? "How so?"

She stares at her hands. "You're tall, you're a guy, you're always cold and aloof, and, well, you're Endeavor's son. I usually don't have much of a problem saying what needs to be said, but there's something a little different about you, Todoroki. Well, I-I don't mean to sound rude, either..." She fidgets with her earphone jacks, wrapping them around her forefinger before pulling free her finger and unraveling the loops.

Endeavor's son... "Oh. Sorry."

"I know you're a nice person, though," she adds sheepishly while meeting my gaze. "It's probably something in your eyes. It's kinda like...I'll be turned into a block of ice if I stare for too long." She resumes rolling her earphone jacks across her digits.

"My eyes? I often receive comments pertaining to their glaring dullness. Is that what unsettles you?"

She bites her bottom lip. "Well, when you put it like that...I feel bad, but you're probably right. Of course, you don't have to answer this, but is there a reason why?" The tapping of her foot evanesces for a moment.

Indeed, but in my head shall the truth reside. "Endeavor wanted me to have a fierce appearance," I reply. "It seems it worked."

"He did? He shouldn't have control over your appearance like that... Wait, hey. Uh." Her eyes flick from her phone to her feet, and then up to my eyes. "Is...the mark...part of that?"

Mom, a part of me wishes that you had simply used your Quirk to terminate the side of me that resembles him. "I'd prefer not to talk about it," I sigh. "Sorry." My gaze finally falters.

Her brows furrow as a sympathetic expression laced with solace spreads across her mien. "No, I'm sorry for bringing it up, Todoroki. Ah. Hearing that stuff, though, makes me want to work on looking past your intimidating appearance. One of these days, I'll be casually looking you in the eyes." She offers me a warm smile, and in response, I craft an awkward grin. "Whoa. I don't think...I've seen you smile before. It looks cool."

Cool? My abominable smile is 'cool,' according to her. She seemed sincere, yet my mind refuses to believe it. What a puerile compliment, and yet my mind immediately issues a debate.

"It's been requested that I smile more," I answer. "I appreciate the feedback."

"I'm guessing either Bakugou or Midoriya made the request. But, don't let the world shape you."

If Bakugou shaped me... "Indeed. I won't let—"

"HOPE YOU'RE READY TO DIE FOR THAT, DIPsh*t!" Bakugou roars, slicing through my words.

Jirou blinks at me once Bakugou's storm of rage has dissipated. "You know, Bakugou acts differently when he's around you. He usually only ever shouts like he just did if he's...well, protecting you."

"He's soft," I say in a half-assed, monotonous chuckle while staring at the back of Bakugou's pluming hair.

Before long, the end of the week arrives, and our class returns to U.A. As planned by Fuyumi, she and I are going to the café previously discussed over text today. As such, after unpacking my belongings from the trip in my dorm, I walk out to the U.A. gates to see Fuyumi standing outside.

"Sho!" she cordially gasps, jamming her phone into her pocket and hooking her arms around me. "Sho, it's been so long! I'm so sorry that I never came home sooner! How have you been?" She releases me from her iron grasp, but her bursting gaiety ceases to dissipate.

This is the best I have felt in quite some time, yet... "Good," I murmur unhurriedly, much in contrast to Fuyumi's bouncing, emphatic words. "How are you?" I glance down to meet her resplendent silver eyes.

She grins. "I'm good! You're taller than I remember... I remember when you weren't even half as tall as I was. Here, I'll take us to the café. I drove here, so, hop in!" She twirls a keychain with jingling keys around her forefinger, gesturing for me to board her vehicle.

"Thank you."

Once I've strapped myself in the passenger's seat and Fuyumi starts the engine, she asks, "Has he gotten any better?" For a brief moment, she espies me from the corner of her eye.

He...beat me from the inside. "Absolutely not, but he is making an effort to change," I reply, staring down at my hands to see that they're trembling. "Fuyumi? He... Ah. When he returned from America, he asked me to get rid of almost all the alcohol. I don't remember him coming home with any after that." I rest my elbow on the side of the car by the window.

"I'm going to try and help to get him on the right track, okay, Sho? I left...because I was afraid. I came home one day and he was drunk. He threatened to break my arm in half if I got in his way...and he started to do it, and a-almost did, so I left. I shouldn't have done that. He hasn't hurt you, has he?" Her lachrymose frown forces me to swallow down the lump in my throat.

You have roughly two months left to live, so...she deserves to know; she would one day discover it, regardless. "Fuyumi...I'm all right," I lie, inwardly rebuking myself for habitually lying. "I've gotten better since that day. The day...you brought me to the clinic."

"That's such a relief to hear..." she sighs, smiling. "I always think about that. That's part of the reason I always send you a letter every week. I love you, Sho, and I don't want anything bad to happen to you. You've been taking care of yourself, right?"

I shrug. "Yeah."

Her brows raise. "Sleeping? Eating? Taking some time away from studying? Exercising?" Her eyes flick from the road to me every so often.

Not now. I've grown sick of hearing the same lines stated differently. "Are you okay?" 'Yes.' "Are you doing all right?" 'I'm fine.' "Is something bothering you?" 'Hm? No.' "You look down." 'I see.' "You don't seem like yourself." 'Oh. How so?' "I'm worried about you." Why would you worry? 'Ah?' "Is something wrong?" 'No, I'm all right.' "Are you sure?" 'I'm sure.' "Just making sure." 'Thank you.' Waste your breath on someone else. 'I didn't mean to worry you.' "Are you taking care of yourself?"

"Yeah." I nod slowly.

"Promise?"

I've lied to you enough, but... "I suppose," I sigh, observing the buildings and people flashing by us in a blinding blur.

Her voice is smoothed with divots as she replies, "That doesn't sound very convincing, Sho. If something's going on, you can talk to me, okay? Just... Please, Sho, don't pretend to be happy if you aren't. It isn't healthy to bottle up how you feel. Saying the truth and how you really feel isn't always easy, but we're here to help you."

"Thanks, but I'm all right. I wasn't feeling great on the trip back." How many f*cking lies... "It's very kind of you." My eyes narrow as my eyelids droop down.

She offers a saturnine nod. "Your eyes...disagree with what you're saying." She inhales slowly. "Sho, there was a night when I couldn't find you. I looked everywhere in the house for you. I found you outside behind one of our trees...but I thought you were dead. I-I thought you..." She shakes her head.

"Fuyumi, it's in the past," I assure her with dull, reassuring words. "Thank you for being here for me. That's more than enough."

We soon arrive at the café. Shortly after arriving, we place our orders—Fuyumi requests a blueberry muffin and sweetened iced tea, and I simply order milk—and sit down at a table by a window. I sit on the side with my back to the window, and Fuyumi sits opposite me, facing the window.

"You can have some of my muffin if you'd like," she offers with a smile kissed by the white sunlight.

"Thanks, but I'm all right." I've realized that it's become increasingly difficult to ingest solids. "It's sweet of you to offer. Ah. Have you visited Mom yet?"

She shakes her head. "How about we both visit her after this? I'm sure that would make her happy." I nod. "Hey, Sho. What's on your hand?" She looks at my right hand.

Dammit. I open the palm of my right hand, looking at the scars from the incident with the glass and alcohol. Training? I turn my hand with splayed digits to face her.

"Training from U.A. Likely some villain attacks as well," I answer succinctly. "Another day, another scar." Shoto, you absolute ignoramus.

"I hope you aren't getting that many scars from U.A., Sho."

"Sorry. I'm...not the best with humor," I murmur, clearing my throat and swallowing a few petals as a waitress delivers our orders. "Thank you."

The waitress, seemingly grasping a subliminal revelation, widens her eyes at me. "You're Shoto Todoroki, right?" she asks, now glancing over to Fuyumi. "And...Fuyumi Todoroki?"

The two of us nod in unison. "That's me," we both say simultaneously, yet our tones depict quite the discrete difference between us.

"It's so nice to see you two in person!" she whispers beatifically while my phone buzzes in my pocket. "I hope you enjoy your time here." She offers us a wave farewell while Fuyumi reciprocates the gesture, and I check my phone to see that Midoriya has sent me his location.

What? I immediately jerk up to my feet and sprint out the door towards the relatively close location on my phone. Midoriya, you must enjoy dragging me down with you. Why me? Katsuki is far stronger than I am. You have known him... Ah. I suppose he would be quite cantankerous.

After perhaps a minute of sprinting, I catch sight of a building set ablaze with shattering diamonds and wisps of orange and yellow. With a straight shot to the building amidst the tumult ravaging the surrounding streets, I fly like a bullet to the building. A bit winded as I arrive, I present my injunction to the nearby citizens to clear away from the area. Scanning for the injured before entering the building, I make haste and rush inside, heeding my hasty approach and disregarding it once an onslaught of Twice's clones bombard me.

Shielding myself from one clone dashing in from my right, I briefly scour the burning building for any injured again, and low and behold, there's a young girl with whitish-silver hair, frightened red eyes, and a small yellow horn poking up from her forehead; she's tucked away in the corner, standing torpefied as the flames shuffling across the floor and walls creep closer to her. Plodding towards her, I smash my right foot down against the ground as sighing glaciers erupt in a crystalline pathway from the girl to me. As these barriers are cracked slowly by the clones clinging to it and banging against it, I secure her hand in mine and pick her up.

"I-I have to...stay," she whispers hoarsely. "I'll cause h-harm again if I leave."

Shaking my head, I surround my mind with only glacial thoughts as the temperature surrounding me plummets. Regulating the temperature of the girl in my arms with my Quirks, I abruptly cause a spike in the temperature with an instantaneous flash of scorching heat. From the collision of clashing particles, a considerably large radius of a volatile, fulminating heat thrusts the majority of Twice's copies outwards and into the walls, severing their forms. Azure ice licked by swerving flames of orange is splintered like glass, and the dagger-like shards jab into the clones that managed to escape from my suppressed attack. With flames soon extinguished and Twice's clones exterminated, I pant softly, heading towards the exit again.

Scrutinizing the air flickering and jittering from the scorching heat, I gradually reset the temperature and lower my guard to ensure that the girl in my arms is uninjured. As I confirm her to be in a stable state, something warm wraps around my neck. Activating my left side, I'm met with glaring stupefaction when only my head produces an insignificant forest of flames.

Unable to move any of my body below my neck, I grunt, tipping back my head in a futile attempt to deter my assailant with the pathetic roar of my enervated flames.

"Try that again and the girl's dead," snaps a belligerent, feminine voice with an undertone of masculinity to it.

f*ck. I grit my teeth, scowling as I deactivate my Quirk. I cannot speak, either.

"Good," she scoffs in a sardonic snicker, dragging me towards a nearby hallway by the neck.

The girl in my arms has small streams of tears running down her cheeks as she silently mouths, I'm sorry!

I gently shake my head as I'm swiftly dragged through quite the labyrinth of halls and into a room yet to receive damage from the fire. In the room, however, are a few chairs, some rope, chains, and glass bottles. Thrown into a dilapidated folding chair, the woman with my neck in her hands remains silent until a shadow approaches along the wall visible outside the exit. Muffled whimpers and ululations of agony and manifest apprehension squeak through my ears, and immediately do I identify them as Fuyumi's cries.

"Hurry your slow ass up," the woman securing me barks at Toga, who jubilantly hauls Fuyumi into the room and closes the door. "Tie him up." She releases one hand from my neck, and my voice returns to me, but I linger in silence as I stare at Fuyumi.

Save her, Shoto. Now. Move... I can't move. I can't use my Quirk. All I have is my head and voice. If you hurt Fuyumi or this girl...

Toga merrily binds Fuyumi's hands together and saunters up to me. "Your sister's super cute! Not as cute as Ochaco, but she's still super cute! Chu!" Fettering me into an inextricable hold of chains from my ankles to my thighs, and my entire torso with the girl included, she smirks innocently at me. "Sadly, she's gotta go." My eyes widen as Toga begins preparing a noose with a hook from the ceiling I failed to notice.

You...wouldn't dare touch Fuyumi. I refuse to allow that to happen.

"No," I wheeze, internally bashing with as much strength as I can muster to free myself from the hold of the Quirk. "No! Let her go. Take...take me." I glance down to the girl in my arms; her blissful obliviousness shielding her from the truth stabs a knife through my heart.

The woman almost laughs, but she promptly stifles it. "Your sister pales in comparison to you. Now, Fuyumi..." I can envision the filthy smile on the woman's face as silence saturates my deafened mind. "Hang yourself...unless you want your brother's neck snapped here and now." Her grip around my neck tightens until I can no longer breathe and strained whines are forced through my lips; something about the feeling of being unable to breathe peppers my mind with a fleeting flicker of warmth.

No. Shoto, get up. This cannot be true. It is only true if I allow it to be. Get up!

With axiomatic foreboding smothering her mien, Fuyumi gasps, "I-I can't...do that!" Clear tears start to drip from her tranquil eyes of gray.

[⚠️] Toga stabs a knife directly through one of the tendons in Fuyumi's left hand, causing my sister to release a shriek that would have threatened to pierce through the air, had Toga not stifled it with her hand over Fuyumi's mouth. "Ah-ah!" she teases Fuyumi, whose bulging eyes twitch, and whose body writhes in shivering agony.

"Nnn!" I fulminate, earning myself another notch of tightness around my neck.

Don't you f*cking dare. Fuyumi, don't listen. Don't. Listen! My heart is throbbing in my chest, my neck, and my head. Fuyumi, you can't...

[⚠️] Toga removes her hand from Fuyumi's mouth with a sweet stare necessitating my sister's silence. Fuyumi softly releases whimpers of unbearable pain from the knife in her hand as her knees cave in beneath her. Sobbing on her knees with diamond rivers flooding her cheeks and kinks punching her unsteady breaths, Fuyumi rips the knife from her hand as Toga promptly slaps her hand back over Fuyumi's mouth. The visceral strain of muscles racked with sharp spasms is abundantly evident on her expression; seeing this stirs my stomach with a gut-squeezing bile.

Why am I so worthless here? Fight! Get up! Move!

As Fuyumi's chest heaves and the boiling heat caking my insides gradually ebbs away, Toga silences Fuyumi by slipping the knife between my sister's quivering lips.

Hurt me, dammit! Not her. feel like I'm going to implode. It hurts. Fuyumi is innocent. She did absolutely nothing wrong... Why? Why? Why!

[⚠️] Although hazy and smudged by my lightheadedness, the flagrant sight before my eyes still reflects a burning clarity in my mind. Now, Toga grips again the knife, plunging it back through the incision she tore open in Fuyumi's hand. Twisting the blade about, she drills a full circle down into the flesh of my sister's pale hand with a grinding, crunching, serrated song of metal scraping at bone. Petals of crimson sprout up from her hand and spring exuberantly through the air. Before long, the vile knife is being pried upwards against her bones and tendons until they're sawed through or hacked apart. Scarlet splatters spank the cool, tiled floor of an immaculate white marble, smearing and tumbling as they splinter against it. Drawn up more insidiously and brutally than Fuyumi's blood, however, is the piercing shrieks of her soul itself rending not the silence, but instead the strings coiled around my heart to prevent it from falling apart.

I feel beyond simply sick... It's as though my guts are being crushed and stretched nearly to the point of tearing. Why... Why her? Stop... I can't take this. Not like this... No one deserves to die like this.

[⚠️] Fuyumi's skin glistens with sweat as Toga proceeds to ruthlessly nail the hilt of the deplorable weapon down onto Fuyumi's fingers like stone on stone until her hand has lost all structure. Uprooting some of the small bones in Fuyumi's fragile fingers by slipping the knife into the chains of bones in what remains of her hand and prying the blade back up like a bottle opener to a cap on a bottle, Toga tosses the bloodied bones behind her with a few small clicks on the ground as the shards bounce and roll. She saws horizontally down into Fuyumi's nails, jamming the blade between her flesh and nail and soon severing the attachment of nail to skin. To a few of Fuyumi's nails, however, Toga sharply punctures the firm, flimsy beds of keratin and vertically drags her knife down along a stream of crimson before popping the nails off by forcing them aloft. Like sticky notes being peeled away, thin strips of nails are dug up from Fuyumi's hands; I can still hear the faint whisper of the taps from the knife teasingly stabbing at her nails before lancing through keratin and issuing another yowl from Fuyumi.

Tick. Click. Pit.

The cacophony of bones and nails jingling on the floor as Toga tosses them aside sings a sardonic lullaby to me.

[⚠️] The tip of the knife jabs at Fuyumi's head, snuggling down into her flesh and curving back up as though scooping ice cream of hot viscera as the honey-blonde digs up Fuyumi's hair; thin, bloodied plates of flesh kiss the floor with crimson, liquid lipstick.

No! No more...

Forcing myself not to vomit at the eye-searing scene of torture in front of me, my dry, harsh gasps threaten to cause my insides to shrivel up. The woman behind me simply snickers softly, and the girl in my arms has her face hidden into my chest to blot out the grotesque party raging over by Toga.

You're...torturing her!

[⚠️] I clamp my eyes shut, and by the time my eyelids have been wedged open, Fuyumi's clothes are tattered, charred, and clinging by threads to her vastly exposed skin. Even with distorting vision, I can still make out a clump of flesh and cartilage on the floor that is none other than Fuyumi's ear. Strewn also across the floor are bloodied, flimsy digits that were likely arbitrary selections. Diminutive flickers of jagged, bloodied shards of nail also catch my eye. Clumps of hair with skin attached rest beside Fuyumi's chair. Despite this hideous painting of agony, a reprehensible smile gleams on Toga's lips.

Although excruciatingly incapacitated, Fuyumi still picks herself up from the floor by Toga's domineering command. Her blurring figure takes a step forwards, and as she does, my heart is gripped by the jaws of fear.

"Nnn!" I groan, unable to scream the myriad of words caught in my throat from the hand severing their escape.

The girl in my arms reaches her small hands up towards the hand around my neck, but her efforts are reprimanded with a harsh strike to her face. "Ow!" she whines. "D-Don't...hurt him! Please!"

"I-I'm sorry, Sh-Sho!" Fuyumi wails, hobbling towards the chair and noose Toga stands by. "I'm SORRY!" Her shaking knees threaten to buckle beneath her again as she unleashes a visceral howl of interminable torture that nips at my senses and eviscerates my heart.

[⚠️] The hand on my neck loosens again, allowing me to speak with shaking words. "FUYUMI!" I snarl, gasping desperately for breath as Fuyumi yowls while she places the remnants of her hands with missing digits and horrifically dilapidated forms on the chair to step up onto it. "DON'T...B-BE FOOLISH!" I can feel my tears causing my eyes to swell, but I repress the obtrusive emotion from consuming me.

"Fuyumi! Don't be foolish!" the girl in my arms repeats from me, but as Fuyumi's glasses flip from smacking the side of the chair, I become excruciatingly cognizant that Fuyumi has no intention of backing down from her staunch efforts.

Fuyumi... I can't lose you. I can't lose you!

"I'M SORRY, SH-SHO!" she gasps in abject despair, standing on top of the chair as her tears shatter at her bloodied feet.

No, goddammit, no! No, no, no. I was always telling you how...how your kindness was going to be your greatest downfall. I can't lose you. I can't...

My heart twists, contorts, warps, bends, and caves in as Fuyumi slips her head through the noose. "F-FUYUMI!" I roar, supplicating for her to dent her steadfast thoughts for even a transient moment. "LISTEN TO ME!" My throat burns from my point-blank inveighs against Fuyumi's actions.

"Fuyumi! Please l-listen!" the girl reiterates from me, squirming in my arms as her tears seep into my shirt.

Seemingly accepting her fate, my very own sister plasters on a lachrymal smile smudged by scarlet and kicks away the chair beneath her, smiling through the fact that the noose around her neck is cutting into her skin. Her body jumps down and bounces jubilantly, and as Toga observes this, she squeals with delight. Dangling and writhing in her death throes, the chained, bloodied remains of Fuyumi's hands raise up in an attempt to free her neck.

No... This isn't right. It isn't right. It's not right. Shoto, move! You worthless toy, move! Fuyumi is hanging herself...but you can't do anything?!

As my head jerks forwards, the second hand of the woman clasps my throat, revoking my voice and drowning my body in a noxious ocean of rancid, asphyxiating defeat.

Now voiceless as my tortured, lamenting soul itself threatens to be sundered from even the faintest whisper of Fuyumi's voice dusting it, I can only stare with watering eyes and a shaking, jerking head as she struggles to fight for her life. Flailing inside my mind from the transparent yet tangible chains clutching fast my body on the inside and outside, my chest vibrates as my heart slams against my ribs and temples. Throbbing throngs of pain lance my heart with every beat, and from this pain, my heartbeat only quickens, spiraling immediately into an interminable cycle of abuse.

With lips peeled back and eyes scrunched closed, Fuyumi ejects throaty whines as she haplessly kicks around in the noose. As she desperately fights through her death throes, her blood is shed onto the ground from her body. Even her nose is turned skywards as her nostrils flare up and saliva begins to drip from the corners of her lips.

Fuyumi... This cannot be real. Fuyumi! Someone... Anyone! Why am I...so weak? I should have pleaded further. Fuyumi! Before it's too late... No. Someone will arrive in time. Midoriya...always arrives in the nick of time. It hurts like hell. It's as though the flames of hell itself are feasting on my soul. It feels like I'm being torn apart from the inside. It hurts. It hurts so much. Don't... Fuyumi! Use your Quirk, dammit! Please, Fuyumi. I just...want to cover my ears and close my eyes. I want to stay oblivious...despite knowing the truth. I want to run away. I want to turn my back on the anathematizing world that would f*ck with my sister's life like this. I want to reject the truth. I can't... I can't avert my eyes from what I caused. Fuyumi! Anything but this... Please. Let me...hang myself. In her place, let it be me. Let it f*cking be me! LET IT f*ckING BE ME! Please! Let it... Let it...be me...

Something hot and sharp cuts through my bramble of fell, grief-stricken thoughts. Straying my eyes for merely an instant, I catch a flicker of silver and red from a knife gliding down my arm through my shirt.

"Stop!" the girl pleads, but she's soon met with a prick of the knife to her hand.

Cut me all you want...but let her go. Let her go. I deserve to die. Not her... Me. It's all my f*cking fault. Let me die. Let me be the one to die! Fuyumi, don't do this! Beat me, cut me, drown me, starve me, crush me, poison me perniciously, burn me, rape me, I don't...f*cking care! I don't care. Torture me to death just to resurrect me to torture me again in an endless cycle. Anything. Anything...

"Surprise! It's soba for you, Shoba!"

Fuyumi's strangled whines escaping her throat force upon me the urge to weep, yet my mind clashes with this disgraceful desire.

"Shh. Don't tell Natsuo...but I gave you extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate."

Anything.

"I'd do anything for you, Shoto. Let me see your finger. Where's the paper cut? Ouchie! I'll make it better, okay?"

Goddammit, anything!

"C'mon, Shoto. Don't be afraid. Swinging is fun! Here. Upsy-daisy. We'll start slow. Just like this. Kick your legs out and in. Doesn't it feel nice? I've gotcha. Don't worry about falling, Sho."

Please...

"Can you smile for me? It's the same as I remember...but I guess a little different. Are you feeling okay, Shoto? You don't smile very often anymore. Oh. I'm glad your arm's feeling better, but...do you feel okay on the inside?"

Please, anything...

"It's okay... Come on. We'll get you washed up and in some new clothes. There, there... Let it out. I'm here, Sho..."

Before this fragile heart of mine is torn up into ribbons, please...

"Oh my God! A-Are you okay? Sho, I'm here... It's all right. It's going to be all right. I-It's going to be all right, Sho, and I'll make sure of it. It's perfectly okay to cry... It's perfectly okay to be sad... You can't help it. I'm going to make it better, okay? T-Trust me."

Yet, I know she's not coming back...

"I'm always going to be here... Whenever you need me, I'm right here. I want you to remember that."

[⚠️] The last I saw her...her skin was pale blue. Her eyes were wide, yet weak as her eyelids drooped. Her dour expression... She was hardly struggling anymore... Blood snaked down her hands mutilated beyond recognition and slid to the floor. Saliva wet her shirt, her pants, the floor, her limbs, her own pools of blood. She's...dead, isn't she? She can't be... No. I can't accept that. It was my fault. I let her die. If I had just...

"There's no reason to feel ashamed of having depression, Sho... Dad...should be the one feeling ashamed for hurting you like this. It isn't your fault, Sho. You didn't ask to feel like this. C'mere. I'm going to help you through this. You're not alone. You don't have to fight this on your own. Sho... Never feel like it's the right thing to hurt yourself. It's never the right option. Never... It might sound good, and it might even feel good, but it's not going to help. It isn't. It's only going to hurt you more. You can't take back the scars, either. It's dangerous, Sho. No matter what you've done, you never deserve to do that to yourself."

She's...gone. She's been gone... I know that. I know she's gone. I know there's no life left in the body dangling from the noose. I know. But...I don't want to believe that. If I look up again...I'd never be able to return.

While my slurring vision from the blood loss is agitated by the torrent of reality suspending my body in the water and suffocating me slowly, I keep my eyes on my feet to prevent myself from imploding. Despite the livid urge to see Fuyumi's body to perhaps witness the thaumaturgy of Fuyumi standing there with a smile for me, I bite back the bullet piercing my mind. As smoke begins to fill my nostrils, I can hear the voice of the woman gradually fading into existence.

"...out. We'll deal with the girl later. He's awfully silent, and when they're silent, you don't know what goes on in their heads. Now, m—"

An abrupt BANG! jerks my attention towards the door.

"sh*t," the woman hisses under her breath.

Why did I get to live? Why the hell am I here? If I had never been here...

Through the grainy lenses of my vision, I can make out Aizawa with his capture cloth outstretched like a whip. Before long, the two villains in the room are the ones bound by chains. Speaking with inaudible words, Aizawa's lips move, but I'm unable to hear him as he unfetters me from my chains and soon picks me up with the girl still in my arms. Repositioning the two of us, Aizawa rests my head over his shoulder. Although my vision is perniciously peeled away, I can still see the jarring, heart-wrenching image of Fuyumi's corpse dangling from the noose. Witnessing the sight that kneads my insides and drives needles and knives through and across my heart, I start throwing up onto the floor as Aizawa carries me off through the building engulfed by an inferno of fire that sears through my eyelids.

Why couldn't...it have been me? It's my fault. I'm still...never enough. Why did I ever believe that I... Why are you rescuing the disappointing, ineffectual failure that...

Through the flickering embers of reality, I make out the sound of Midoriya's voice before slipping away into a world where the anguish is assuaged and the agony mitigated. This grasp of a reprieve, however, endures only for an ephemeral moment as I awaken.

Fluorescent lights of snow disorient and blind me as I jolt upright, frantically looking around with vision smudged by the grimy paws of sleep. Something gently pushes me back down into bed on my back, and as the realization that I'm in the hospital strikes me, so does the realization that Fuyumi Todoroki, my one and only sister, is dead. All thanks to the worthless thing of vanity that is me, my sister will never return to walk upon this world again.

A barrage of tears hammer at the glass dam of my eyes as I breathe heavily, unable to grasp onto reality yet.

No. It...can't be.

The livid thundering of the bleeding heart in my chest thrusts upon my mind the injunction to kick itself into gear. Recalcitrant and vindictive, my body counterpoises the ear-splitting bells of heartbeats by augmenting the intensity of the shivers crawling down my skin and the breaths being forced from my lips.

Why...wasn't it f*cking me?!

"I'M SORRY, SH-SHO!"

Recalling Fuyumi's fuzzy body drooping from the noose in the burning building, and the innocent, small girl locked into my arms, I find myself capitulating to hyperventilation.

Why am I alive? Why not me? Why her? I should've died. I would've endured anything... I would have endured absolutely anything for her to live. I would have been a slave to Endeavor to save her. I would have let him use me however he wanted. Why...did it have to be her?

"Oi?" calls a familiar voice benumbed by my thoughts. "Oi, focus on me." I meet two ruby eyes mired by the fogginess of my mind. "Easy, Sho. Deep breaths...like this." Attempting to align my breathing with Bakugou's, I slowly regulate my breathing to a stable state. "There. C'mere." His arms gently curl around my neck and torso, yet a volatile dispute between my mind and body retracts my ability to feel his flesh on mine in intermittent intervals.

You sound...like Fuyumi.

Once Bakugou finally pulls away from me, I realize that there are tears blurring my vision. "B-Bakugou..." I whine, inwardly reviling my vulnerable, pleading voice. "Why...wasn't it me?" I hang my head, curling my lips back a bit. "Why? Why did...sh-she have—"

He silences me with his warm lips enveloping mine.

It hurts, Bakugou... My chest feels so heavy, yet it feels so empty. It hurts. I deserve to die. I should've died. Why... Why couldn't I have died? Fuyumi... Anything. Fuyumi...I never thanked you for everything. You're gone. I want to see you. I never realized how much you meant to me until you...

Bakugou pulls back from the embrace of our lips, and through my watering eyes can I see the anguish written on his face. "Sho...listen to me, all right?" He gently places his hand on my cheek, lifting my head to face him. "More than you're ever going to understand or let yourself feel, I f*cking love you. Don't... Don't you dare start beating yourself up over this. Don't you dare degrade yourself for not being able to stop her, or any of the sh*t going through your head. Don't you dare...think that it should've been you." Gleaming rubies of ardor burn faintly before me as I blink back my asinine tears.

I don't think you can see...how much your love is killing me. "What...do you mean?" I murmur, turning my head away from him. "Bakugou, I d-deserved to die there. I let them torture her. I deserve to die, Bakugou... I deserve to f*cking die..."

I could have said something to give her the exigence to stop. Anything... I let her die. How do I...tell this to Mom? How can I tell her that my own vanity caused Fuyumi to die? All I am...

Bakugou, with a livid lour, shakes his head. "No. No, you f*cking didn't and don't, you asshole. Don't you f*cking dare die on me...Shoto. Shoto Todoroki, you're going to live, goddammit. You're gonna f*cking live... Hear me? Don't f*ck around with your life... Look, I don't mean to swear so much with this tone, but I-I'm worried about you, and I can't help that, regardless of how much you might tell me not to worry." With his fists curled inwards, there's quite the bit of conviction invested in their quivering, ghastly forms.

"She wouldn't be dead if I'd died that day..." Disparaging and glacial, my abject statement transiently takes Bakugou aback.

"Wh-What the hell do you mean?" With lips curling back and watering eyes, he opens his mouth to speak, but no words ultimately flow from this misleading mix of motion.

Cerebrating the ramifications of my keen, leaden words, I bite my lower lip, feeling as my sense of awareness shrivels up. I never told him about that day, did I? I really am...a disgusting failure. Nuzzling myself into silence, I scurry into the cloud of rampant thoughts flooding through my mind.

"Oi..." As a hand comes into contact with my arm, I immediately whip my eyes to meet Bakugou's; lachrymose and quite the spectacle of dolorous grandeur in their current, sullen form, those eyes suspend the me in my mind in the realm of reality, yet my head lingers above the barrier. "Answer the question, Sho. What happened on what day?"

"I'll beat the silence out of you. Answer me. Is it deaf? ANSWER ME. You're a worthless scar on my life. Is that the Hero you want to be? You tore us apart. You will do the same to the community, you disobedient dog. "

No more... Please, no more. It hurts. I'm shaking. Stop. I'm...not strong enough to drown out the memories.

Clutching my hair with my hands as fear sinks its whetted incisors into the worn elastic of my mind, I wail, "I-I'm sorry!" Choking on my words, my breaths are crushed by the hands of my ceaselessly spinning and rapidly festering memories.

Me. No matter how I look at it, I am the only one culpable for this. I should've died. I should've died! Not Fuyumi, but me! Why couldn't...I have been the one to die? Katsuki, please...please just kill me. It f*cking hurts! I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here... Scream at me and expose every single one of my flaws. Tell me that I'm worthless and that I should die for what I've done. Stab me in the back, burn every ounce of trust I have, decimate my sensibility, rid of the human in me. Beat me, rip me apart, jam your fingers into my wounds and shred them all just to pry apart my insides, drench me in boiling water... Please... Turn my heart into a literal pincushion, keep my neck in a vice so that I'm perpetually struggling to breathe, drown me slowly, punch and kick me until my bones break and you can tear them out to beat me with them... I could ask for no better way to die. Anything to erase what I currently am. Anything...

"f*ck... Oi, hey. Sh-Sho, I'm right here. No one's gonna hurt you..." He curls his arms around my chest, and I immediately sink my front half into his embrace. "I'm never gonna leave your side, 'kay? Breathe, breathe..." His hands deftly stroke down my scapulae and across the upper half of my back.

Why are you...so kind to me? Katsuki, why? Please... Please stop. No... No more.

"Th-Thank you...K-Katsuki," I whisper under my breath while endeavoring to compose myself again.

Bakugou holds me fast against his chest for another few, swift minutes before releasing me. "It's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. If you wanna cry, then do that. Don't hold them in—you're going to drown yourself on the inside. No matter how much you cry, you're never going to drown like that...but you will if you bite them back."

My heart feels as though it's been crushed to dust on the floor. Would you stop loving me if I said I can endure it no more? I'd rather you hate me than love me when I can't return the feeling. The lie of love only hastens the process of how my heart is peeling. I want to hear the truth directly from your lips. When you hate me, it reminds me of how much I deserve to watch as my own blood drips. I'm begging you to make blatantly clear the truth. The fact that I am the insults you throw takes no sleuth. Even if the tears burning my eyes hurt more with each passing day... Well, that doesn't mean you have to be kind to me, anyway. By the time I start weeping, I've already been surfeited with my tears. Imagine now where I would be if love was not one of my fears. Pierce me with the splenetic truth until I break. The kindness you're giving me is simply too much for me to take. I deserve to have those festering thoughts circulate through my head. Hearing your dagger-like remarks of unfettered hatred for me while you break me with your own hands would be my preferred method to end up dead.

- Month 2, Week 1 -

Finally released from the hospital after essentially being put under suicide watch during my time there, I sigh at the fresh air tinged by an earthy, damp scent from the fresh fall of rain. With Bakugou's hand in mine, we walk the dismal streets mottled with splatters of slate-gray. Our hands, warm and sticky, are slicked over with small drops of rain crawling down between our fingers.

"Hey," Aizawa greeted me, sitting at my bedside perhaps an hour or two after I'd finished having another mental breakdown of relentless, thoroughly tempting thoughts of suicide. "How do you feel today, kid?" His head tilted up a bit to better examine my bleak eyes.

I dared not utter a word, and after twenty minutes of Aixawa's pleasantries, the familiarity in his words suddenly jerked my attention. "Do you remember the girl that was with you?" I nodded slowly. "Her name is Eri, and she'll be staying with me. We've kept a close eye on her due to her mutated Quirk."

Finally opening my mouth to speak, I quietly asked, "She...wasn't hurt?"

"Minor injuries." I was the reason. "You saved her, Todoroki. Had she not been with you, the flames would have engulfed her."

I can't believe that. "She saw it all," I murmured distantly.

"Although she is still haunted by those memories, she would have no memories if you hadn't been there. She's still young with overflowing innocence."

I can't alter the truth. All of this ensued from my grave errors. It hurts. It hurts more than I could ever hope to describe. I don't want to feel it. I deserve it, however...

Aizawa handed me a white piece of paper that had been folded horizontally and turned from there on its side. "Eri made this for you."

On the front of the card was a large, pinkish-red heart with gold glitter surrounding its peripheries. Above the heart was my first name written in silver with sky-blue icicles on both sides, and below the heart was my last name written in turquoise with orange and yellow flames around it. Opening up the card, the right half of it included a drawing of me holding Eri with a smile on both of our faces.

She made this for me? I asked myself as my eyes drifted over to the left half of the paper with a neat note written in alternating red and gray by each word. I appreciate it, but I don't deserve it.

The card read:

Thanks so much for saving me Todoroki! Your an awesome hero and your my hero. I hope you get better really really soon! Deku said smiling helps when your sad. He said smiling helps make you happy. I hope your also happy soon Todoroki. Thanks again!

Why is it that this card beseeches I cry? I inwardly questioned while my vision was dented with a whip of my tears. I am your hero? I exposed you to such a gruesome scene of torture and suicide. You hope I get better? Does it ever truly get better? Even with Bakugou here...I'm not happy. I don't want to be, but the people around me want me to be. I lost the right to be happy. I rubbed my eyes a bit to brush away my tears as I set the card aside.

"You can cry, Todoroki," Aizawa sighed with solace warming his malleable words.

I'm...sick of crying. I offered a saturnine shake of my head. I'm sick of feeling. Every now and again, I think about why I'm here, but I never have an answer. Endeavor cannot emphasize enough that I am a mistake, a creation, a scar, a failure, worthless... The list is endless. I don't deserve to live because of how useless I am. Even if he typically only expresses this when he's intoxicated, I believe him. I've failed far too many times to be offered value. It's lonely...and it f*cking hurts. It hurts...but I want to be hurt. I'm terrified of being hurt, yet I want to be hurt. So, let me slit my wrists again. f*ck. I want to scar my skin here and now. Don't make any daft mistakes that would extend your time here or land you in the psych ward with a straight jacket. Once again, I'm relapsing. Goddammit, I've had enough... Cut... Cut the thoughts. Cut. Scissors. I need... Cut it away. Cut apart. Cut. I need to cut. I feel like I'm going absolutely insane.

Prior to being discharged, I was asked about what I planned to do for my abominable disease. Fortunately, Aizawa did request that this disease be kept confidential from Bakugou—albeit he trusts me to inform him in due time. It was reiterated once again that I can either receive the surgery or devise a plan for the one who gave this disease to me to love me.

I do not feel the same way, and so...the love is not mutual. This love is still unrequited. How utterly unfortunate.

"So, where do we go?" Bakugou questions with his voice misted by the taps of rain breaking on the ground.

Head lowered and leaden with thought, I shift it with saturnine, almost mechanical movements to glance over at him. "My home," I mumble, curling my hands into loose fists. "I need...to tell him. Fuyumi wanted to reconcile with him and help him. She's...not here anymore. The least I can do is grant the last wish of hers I know of."

He sighs. "I'm coming with you. You just got done with all the hospital sh*t, and—"

"It doesn't concern you," I state with frost creeping over my words. "K-Katsuki, I'm doing this on my own. When it's over, I'll tell you." Uncharitable and aloof, I lick the thin trail of water snaking down by my lips.

"You sound all morose to hell and back. I get it—family stuff. Still. Shoto, I don't want him to f*cking break you. What if you walk out and you're covered in bruises and wounds?"

"Then I'm covered in bruises and wounds."

"Goddammit. Don't say that, Shoto."

With a large, audible sigh and drooping eyebrows, I reply, "I already said it." I pull my hand away from his, inserting it into my pocket.

"Am I...just making things worse for you?" Flat and sharp, his voice nicks the barrier of solitude I've fortified myself with.

To some extent. "Is that not my role in your life for my history of depression keeping me in the hospital for my behavior to be kept under surveillance? Don't be foolish. It's my fault that I want to die." Now realizing the magnitude of my candid statement, I cover my left eye with my left hand. "f*ck. Sorry."

He grasps my arm, gentle and slow, before pulling it free from my pocket and holding my hand again. "I don't...know what the hell to say to that, but for f*ck's sake, it isn't your fault." He pauses. "You're different, Sho."

Not my fault? I am the one with the mind thinking these thoughts. No one else's mind is mine. I am the only one culpable for the thoughts I've conjured up. It is entirely my choice to think this way. Any daft ideas you have should remain in their secluded domain of thought.

"I watched my sister hang herself. Do you think I'd be the same? No. No, I-I wouldn't be."

I internally grasp my throbbing heart to prevent it from splintering into thousands of jagged shards. It hurts...so much. I can't die without first attempting to fulfill what she wanted and confronting Mom about this. There's a cut across my heart that won't stop bleeding. It's...so draining. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I want to collapse, yet I can't. From my path through my fate, there is no escape. Loosening my grip on my heart threatening to fall apart, I lift my head to stare at the gray path in front of me.

Bakugou firmly grips my hand with his. "I don't think any person would," he whispers softly, seemingly seized by dubiety. "You're...being so damn cold, but I think that's just a facade. Shoto, you can show emotion. You're allowed to do that. I don't care what that f*cking bastard thinks. You have emotions, and you're allowed to feel them and express them. They weren't made...to be shut away." His grip tightens.

The tears that burn my eyes don't hurt when they don't exist. I remain silent, returning to stare at the ground with a thin film of water filling in the small grooves and cracks in the pavement. Bakugou, I suppose you could say I'm different...in a different way from what you meant. Even so, let not my repulsive decisions deter you from your own aspirations. You do understand that it's fine for you to leave me if I'm holding you back from being who you want to be, right?

"I'll kill you if you don't speak," he mutters softly, rendering his utterance as harmless.

Please f*cking kill me. "What...is there to say? I don't know what to think." This incertitude must be one of my greatest flaws. "I-I don't know." My hands gently curl into fists.

"Then...tell me that, Sho," Bakugou sighs. "It's fine if you don't know—makes sense that you don't—but when you're dead silent, I don't know what you're thinking."

"I'd say that's for the best."

"Goddammit, Shoto." He huffs softly through his teeth. "I love you...and I hate seeing you hurt."

A shame. I like seeing myself hurt. Why? I deserve it. Regardless of what I do, it's never enough. It wasn't enough to prevent Fuyumi from putting her head through the noose. And it hurts... Axiomatic indeed, but this is a different kind of pain. Different. So different, yet so alike by the label of "different," and yet never the same...

With eyes detached from reality and an empty body forcing itself through the seams of the world I walk across, I mutter, "I don't see the hurt fading any time soon, so get used to it."

He furiously shakes his head, freeing some of the water droplets strung up in his hair. "What the f*ck? No, I'm not gonna get used to seeing you suffer! Not in the way you're implying, dammit. Shoto, I want you to f*cking get better. How would you feel if you knew your boyfriend wanted to die so f*cking bad, but you couldn't..." He never finishes his sentence.

I'd join you in a heartbeat. "I think you can answer that for yourself," I sigh despondently. "I'm sorry you have to put up with my sh*t."

Even when I try to die, my memories of you always stop me before I can completely tear myself apart. It's a lonely feeling when no one sees how much you just want to die. It's so sour and bitter when no one can see through your lies; it lulls your mind into the belief that no one truly cares enough if they won't pry. It's painful when you can cover wounds and scars behind sleeves and lies, but you can't cover the bleeding lacerations on the inside. What hurts more...is that they now know about the dark truth I hid, and they want to save me from it. I'll gladly suffocate in my solitude if it means no one will know. If they won't hate me for what I am, I'll hate myself. If they won't beat me for my mistakes, I'll keep cutting until nothing of me is left. If they won't leave me, I'll leave them. If they won't kill me...

Regardless of how much they wish I could take back my longing to disappear, I'll keep lying through every reason I have to die. Time keeps flowing. Even without the boy divided into a cold half and a hot half, time won't stop. Even if the tears keep falling, my tears are no different from anyone else's tears, and time would ignore those tears. Even if I cut so deeply as to drain my body of all its blood, everyone has blood, and time continues on. What does it matter...if time won't wait for anyone? When there are so many who have never heard of me and never will? When it's so easy to leave it all behind because I can't find a reason strong enough to erase the desire to disappear? "Keep going." "You can do it." "Keep fighting." "It's hard, but it'll be worth it." It's hard...and it only gets harder. Even if I wanted to live, I'd still die. Why the hell...does it matter?

Once we finally arrive at my house, I check our mailbox to see the last letter Fuyumi sent to me. Confirming to myself that this letter is indeed from her, I shakily pinch the envelope open, gently tearing through the adhesive and opening it up. Thinking about it now, the letter feels a bit heavier than normal. Thumbing through the letter's content, I see Fuyumi's letter and three small, glossy photos. Leaving the photos inside the envelope, I pull out the letter and unfold it.

Hi, Shoto! I'm so excited to see you and Mom this week! I started thinking about our family again, and I've decided that I'm going to do what's right and try to repair what's been broken. Dad really needs help, doesn't he? I'm sure you do as well, Sho. That's not to say I don't still resent him for what he did to all of us, but why rub salt into the wound? I want to make this right. I'm tired of living in fear of what's going on between us all. I miss the days when we were all somewhat happy together. Remember when we were playing volleyball together? You were so young... I want us, as a family, to be able to have moments like those again. I still don't know what happened to Touya, but I just know he's somewhere out there. It won't be easy to convince Natsuo to come back, but I'm sure that with enough time to recover, he'll be here as well. I know Mom still has another few months at the least before she's free, but she's strong. Besides, I'd feel bad if Mom came back to Dad being, well, worse. Dad... I don't know what happened to start his addiction, but I'm going to start working him through it. I want us to be happy. I want us to be together. If it's the last thing I do, I want to see us all smiling together again. I miss your smile, Sho. I'm hoping you'll let me see it when I see you. Love you!

Gripping the letter in my hand, my fingers threaten to push up against and through it. I...have to fix this. Midoriya said one simple sentence, and my eyes were suddenly peeled open with blinding clarity. How can I...make him see? How can I...be the Hero I want to be? Even the greatest of Heroes can follow the wrong paths. Even the worst of villains still deserve a second chance. Past the flashy epithets, we're all still just humans, right? So... Tucking the letter back inside the envelope, I remove the three photos.

"Oi. Those pictures?" Bakugou asks, tilting his head at me.

I nod, silently thumbing through them to see a family photo of all six of us standing just outside of our house. The next photo is of me, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Touya playing volleyball outside. The last photo is a picture of me as a baby nestled into my mom's arms with my siblings staring in awe at me; Endeavor smiles with what I can easily identify as an authentic smile of his.

"Look at how f*cking cute you were," Bakugou cackles, nudging me gently. "Look at those chubby-ass cheeks. Goddamn." He pats my back.

What...the hell happened to us? Not that all was perfect to begin with. No. Forced marriage for Quirk inheritance for future generations... Endeavor's lust for power only grew as he created us. My siblings never had easy lives. Far from it. Mom...must have had it the worst out of all of us. Even so...I was the nail in the coffin. He decided that I was the perfect creation. He labeled everyone else as failures and me as the perfect candidate to pursue his dream of surpassing All Might. I was the one to shatter Mom's mental state. It's okay to become who I want to be. I'm not bound by my blood. It's my power, not his. I can become a Hero, but...what kind of Hero am I when all I am is a dubious, suicidal thing with two Quirks?

With an audible sigh, I clutch Bakugou's hand and squeeze it tight before walking up to the place I still refer to as my home. Reaching my trembling, clammy hand up to the sliding door, I roll it open and step into the frigid, hollow air of the kingdom of the current greatest Hero. With an open envelope in hand and an aloof mask plastered over my degenerating countenance, I trudge forth through the heaviness of the halls. My silent, growling breaths peppered with intermittent kinks slip swiftly from my lips. Closing my eyes at the training room, I swallow down a leaden brick of undulating, visceral gasps of guilt and trepidation. Placing my hand on the door, I scrunch my eyes closed and gradually roll it past me. Now with my jittering eyes locked onto Endeavor, who's currently stretching, I take a step forward.

With a mien overwritten by cold, boiling urgency, I part my lips to speak, but for a few seconds, no words materialize. "Endeavor..." I finally choke out, forcing my enervated voice from my throat. "Do you know where Fuyumi is?" I grit my teeth, swallowing again a suffocating bile of self-culpability and unadulterated fear.

"She moved out," he replies, raising his brows at me in an astonishing state of sobriety. "Shoto, what do you need?" As he begins to approach me, I remind myself not to succumb to the impulse to step back.

Show no weakness. "Read this," I utter, my achromatic voice void of emotion as I lift my arm and hand him the envelope. "This is the last letter from Fuyumi." Despite the roaring strings of ticks that my heart talks with as it bashes against my chest, I feel oddly calm.

"Hm?" Endeavor reads over the letter, and as he does, I analyze his facial expressions. From perplexed to somewhat softened and longing to a lingering frown, he now pulls out the photos. His cold eyes of turquoise jump at the photos in his hands, and as he seemingly reminiscences over them, those familiar eyes that I also remember to be saturated with salacity transfix mine. "This...is her last letter?" In his typical, undaunting voice whistles a silent undertone of something akin to vacillation.

"She's dead," I state objectively, refusing to allow my emotions to impede the delivery of my words.

His eyes take in a large, slow gasp as his pupils enlarge, spilling out into the lakes of turquoise in his eyes. Silently, his lips part thinly with saturnine movements. Something foreign and dim stirs in his widened eyes.

"That's why..."

Even after what you've done, the damage you've ruthlessly racked others with, the palpable and transparent scars you've marked us with, the abuse, the fact that you...raped me, and everything you've done, I have to do this. I'll never forget, but who the hell would I be if I brushed this aside? If I let this continue? If I let you continue to blindly drown yourself in your own misery?

His gaze flicks to the floor as a certain stillness chains his body.

Selfish. Indubitably, I would be the most selfish person to exist, if I can call myself one anymore. I cannot simply hope for a day when this will all end. Hope is absolutely futile. I've no room for any hope. Why? I'll be that hope. Sitting idly and hoping is asking for mutual misery.

As Endeavor's breaths gain a certain heftiness to them, I find myself unable to stifle the tremors savaging my limbs.

I'm falling apart. I'm coming undone. I'm unraveling. I'm breaking. It hurts. I don't...want to remember what I saw. Her body...lifelessly dangling there. Swaying. Blurry. There... Her head through the noose. Stop. I can't...take this.

My facade begins to crack as my lips peel back towards the left. Tears jab at my eyes, and through my distorting lenses can I see my own hands shaking. With the abrupt eruption and evanescence of my breath, I plaster on a rancorous lour.

"...I'm going to save you."

Chapter 9: Heart of a Hero

Chapter Text

A beat. A blistering beat of hard, elastic taffy smacking a solid surface ricochets through my head from the visceral cries of my heart. Deafening me with a beautifully burning barrage of belligerent, audible apprehension, my chest feels as though it will certainly explode if another bullet of liquid sound perforates it. Despite what I feel, the bullets that fulminate around my mind are ceaseless—but I’ve yet to fall.

“...I’m going to save you,” I mutter with steadfast conviction dampened by paralyzing fear.

Quivering in place as frigid tears gloss over my eyes, I stare directly into Endeavor’s enlarged, inscrutable pupils of onyx with a resolute glare. Sweltering doggedness rolls across my body like viscous lava while my soured expression oscillates between one of suppressed bereavement and anguish, and my current one of irate, vindictive desperation.

“Don’t you see…what the hell you’re doing to yourself?” With shaking steps mired down by the enmity of apprehension, I encroach on the space demarcating me from Endeavor until I’ve shattered the invisible barrier by gripping the front of his shirt with my hands. “I know you feel remorse after each time you drink.” My capricious eyes lock onto his, and through my hissing, splenetic tears can I discern the forlorn stare he wears. “I know you had a reason to k-keep drinking that night.” As my grip on his shirt tightens, the tears burning my eyes finally flood down my face in two slow streams of silver. “S-So, tell me, Flame Hero E-Endeavor…” His periodically blurring form starts to lower as he kneels down.

My debilitated legs buckle beneath me, but I remain above the floor from my grasp on Endeavor’s shirt as he whispers, “Shoto—”

“...do you or do you not hate yourself?” Had the tears slipping down my cheeks remained stationed behind the dams of my eyes, I ponder whether or not the manifest tear in Endeavor’s composure would be so salient.

The filthy hands of his once commanded to force himself inside of me now brush away my tears as those saline gemstones adorning my cheeks continue to tumble towards my chin. Endeavor completely kneels down to the floor, hesitantly grasping my shoulders to prevent my body from collapsing. As I lift my head to glimpse into his eyes again, the tears I’ve already been jaded with refuse to perish; the sardonic streaks of clear crystal merely hasten their collective descent.

I will never forget what you’ve done to us. I will never truly let it go. The pain I experienced is still perpetually dinned into my mind. The scars you gave me will never fade. Regardless of how I look at you, it never feels right to say that you are my father. What you stole from me—my virginity—is something I can never retrieve. It hurt. It hurts. The pain will never properly heal and recede. Simply remembering hurts so damn much. Even so…

“I can’t hope to ever apologize for what I’ve done,” he murmurs with his dolorous voice tinged by slowly burning, fervent flames of rue. “My heinous actions are unforgivable. I despise what I’ve done, Sho— “

Varnish not your answer. “A-Answer…the goddamn question,” I hiss with words steeped in acrimonious venom as my breath jerks in my throat.

Endeavor’s fingers curl tightly into the fabric of my shirt. “‘What am I to you?’ Shoto Todoroki, you are my son, and you are invaluable to me, despite what I am guilty of. ‘I’m going to save you.’ I’m no father, and certainly no proper Hero. Words will never suffice to say how ashamed I am of my actions, myself, and that you would put everything aside for even just a moment…to save me. ‘Prove that without words.’ To the question you currently want me to answer, my answer is: I do, Shoto.”

I figured as much… I cogitate while promptly encircling as much of Endeavor’s front half as my arms will allow. This feels like the right thing to do, yet it feels so wrong to do it. I want to save you, Endeavor, but to do so, it’s killing me where you can’t see. Sobbing silently against Endeavor, I can feel as he breathes with slightly unsteady breaths. But…it doesn't matter. I don’t need to be okay for anyone else to be okay, and to me, that is perfectly okay. Even if you throw me away and spit in my face that all was simply a lie, is that not my preferred outcome? To be hated, unloved, and trampled? The hands holding my shoulders now curl around my torso. I deserve it. I deserve beyond that. I want all of that. Replicate the feeling of sitting atop the balcony of Death for me. Go ahead.

“I should have done something that night,” I utter with an undertone of sputtering revulsion from Endeavor’s hands being closer to my waist than before. “For that, I apologize, b-but I want to know…” Attempting to quell the disgust churning in my stomach, I breathe deeply and heavily.

“Do you remember when Touya went missing?” he questions, to which I nod my head at. “Natsuo was furious with me, and with good reasoning. He refused to talk to me for quite a while after lashing out and screaming that it was all my fault. The hatred and sorrow in his eyes is something I won’t forget, either. When I told Rei about it… I can’t forget the expression she made.” He glances at the burn mark on my face. “I never thought she was capable of doing something like that. I never realized the degradation of her mental state. I was far too focused on training you, and looking back on it…I never treated you like a human being. I treated you like an unbreakable, moldable machine with my blood flowing through you, Shoto. When I started to realize that, I got into the habit of having an occasional drink to take my mind off of it. Instead of addressing the situation…I made it worse. That specific night, I couldn’t resist the urge to grab another, and another… It dulled the ringing voices in my head.” He reaches a hand up to my head and pats the top of it gently.

Blinking back my tepid tears, my eyelids flutter open and closed, crushing my vision with dusty vices of shadow. I swallow harshly before audibly exhaling, relaxing my grip slightly. From my unspoken, yet vehement sobs, my head excruciatingly throbs.

You refused to succumb to the weight of what I’m certain you viewed as daft hindrances to my training at the time. In doing so, those memories indignantly struck back, did they not? When the actualization of it all finally began to sink in, you chose to try and dissociate from the reality of it, yes? I see. Then…

“If you understand all of that, then do you understand what you’ve done to yourself? Not simply yourself…because what you do to yourself still affects the people you interact with.” I would know. “You’re the greatest Hero…but no one said Heroes don’t need to be saved. Even so, you have responsibilities. You can’t afford to continue like this, Endeavor. There are others relying on you and your performance. You are jeopardizing the safety of yourself and others by doing this. You already received quite the nasty, ironic scar across your face.” I fumble slowly for one of his large, filthy hands that still causes my stomach to flop around. “So…let me give you my hand. Let me give you my hand…so you can give yours to those who need it as well.” I firmly intertwine my trembling, cool fingers with his, internally placating myself and shooting down the impetuous commands to flee and sink to the floor.

“You possess the true heart of a Hero, Shoto,” he sighs in a soft whisper while his hand cautiously reciprocates my gesture. “I accept your hand. Thank you, Shoto. I’d like to be a father that you can look up to not simply as a Hero, but as a father figure as well.” He gradually releases his grip on me, prying me from himself and holding my shoulders with a certain wash of solemnity obscuring his mien. “As your father, I want to know about what I’ve done to you while intoxicated.”

Now, I’d simply feel guilty for admitting the truth… I think while rubbing at my eyes a bit with the backs of my hands. I’m such a hypocrite. I can speak with such emphatic words a spiel of my mind to someone else, yet even if the same could be said to me, and someone else delivered their own spiel to me, I would lie through a smile. It’s…so rotten, isn’t it?

Now with eyes dulled by the tugging tiredness from the droplets of a clear, salty liquid that previously licked my cheeks, I glance down at the floor while I scratch at my arm. “You’ve…already heard of the damage.”

“You said that I stole something from you, and that I’m responsible for something beyond the reason why you were adamant about me not touching your waist. Shoto…I know fear when I see it. You’re afraid of me. What have I done to you?”

Stop…prying me apart. “You stole my blood and put your hands on places that you shouldn’t have,” I murmur, succumbing not to trepidation. “I am not the one who currently needs saving.” Even if you stab me in the back, I honestly feel…that I would prefer that.

“I’m certain that I’m guilty of so much worse, Shoto,” my austere father presses while lowering his brows a bit. “Your hand was injured, and you refused to explain that. You’ve lost weight, and your performance during training has been decreasing. After our training when I returned from America, you attacked me out of fear. You knew of Fuyumi’s death before I did. How did you know? You were not at home all week, either. You haven’t answered your phone at all, although I will admit that I regret sending some of my messages. Where have you been, Shoto?” His arms lace over each other as he straightens his posture, yet he remains in a kneeling stance.

“I-I’m sorry, Sh-Sho! I’m SORRY!”

A writhing pang of pain seizes my heart. Acrid discomfort, keen self-reproach, and boiling fear slosh around in my stomach. Tears scorch my eyes like diamond lances abraded by time itself yet again, but I press them back and tamp them down. Frigid vacillation asphyxiates my lungs.

Astute as always, drunk or not… “My classmates informed me.” My nails continue to glide over my sleeve.

“I haven’t heard of any recent incidents.”

Dammit, I can never lie under pressure, but I suppose he could have been drunk when it struck the news. “I…was there. I-I was there.” The blood, the knife, her screams, her eyes, her expressions, the noose…yet, why couldn’t it have been me? “Why couldn’t…” I begin before gulping back my incriminating words of self-abasem*nt.

Evidently discountenanced by the abrupt deluge of truth that was once pouring from my lips, Endeavor’s irises become malleable rings of turquoise. “Shoto, where were you over this past week?” His voice soughs softly into my ears like a smattering of leaves contorting in the wind.

You…in me. Fuyumi…in the noose. The knife…in her hand. The girl…in my arms. In… In. In? In. Petals…in my lungs. Pain…in my chest. Words…in my wounds. Nothing…in my eyes. Suicide…in my head. Glass…in my hands. Scissors…in my wrists. Blades…in my heart.

“FUYUMI!”

Covering my mouth with my hand, I hunch forwards as I instantaneously begin to force large, curved petals, vivid, verdant leaves, and gleaming beads of crimson from my lungs. Thrust into a pulsating, disconcerting whirlpool of coughing and muddled gasps, I curl my fingers into the shirt hanging over my chest.

“What…is this, Shoto?” Endeavor inquires once I’ve finished voiding the upheaval of unpleasant petals from my body.

Dammit, dammit, dammit! “I-It’s…the Hanahaki D-Disease,” I huff with a voice scraped between the stones of adversity and derision.

His head tilts to a diminutive degree. “Hanahaki Disease? Preposterous, yet… Who is the girl responsible for this?”

He knows what it is? Even so… Girl? He doesn’t know about whatever my sexuality might be. I am fully cognizant that he would desire for me to continue the renowned lineage of the Todoroki name, but…by blood might not be an option for me. Even if Bakugou was the one to give this disease to me, I was the one to permanently agitate it.

I wince, slowly running my hand across my throat. “The p-person…isn’t a g-girl,” I gasp, shattering my equilibrium as I silently supplicate to either evade punishment for being so dirty an animal so as to orient myself towards perhaps preferring a male partner, or to simply have what remains of me beaten to fetid splatters.

Disgust twitches across Endeavor’s countenance. “Then, who is it, Shoto?” He shakes his head, turning it up slightly.

“K-Katsuki…Bakugou.”

He loves me, but…I don’t feel the same way. I’m disgusting. I’m so filthy. I do not deserve him in the slightest. Why would he ever wish to be with a disgusting thing like me?

His chest gradually expands with air before flattening out. “To be absolutely clear…you, Shoto, have fallen in love with a boy, and that specific boy is Katsuki Bakugou? The one from your class?” His glaring emphasis on “boy” threatens to pull my heart asunder and abrade the remains to dust.

Are you going to punish me for having a male preference in potential partners? I somewhat hope that that is the case. I deserve as much. Is that…the only reason?

Forcing down the large, vexing bulge in my throat, I hoarsely reply, “I might have, p-previously. Now? N-No, I don’t…love him. Instead, he l-loves me.” My hands curl gently into fists. “I…don’t know wh-what I am yet.” For quite a while, I thought myself straight, but I haven’t a clue anymore.

“Although I don’t like this idea of my son being in a relationship with another boy, I can’t stop you from having your own life.” Silence drips through the air, fluctuating through the inevitable turbulence of reality before evanescing. “Does he…treat you well? I have a vague memory of him holding something over his head and shouting at me.” His eyes narrow a bit.

He treats me as though I am an angel. “He’s…perfect.” He is far too perfect for the mistake that I am, so I wish that he would hate me.

With the slight raise of his left cheek, Endeavor exudes an aura that irritates my skin and turns erect the hairs on my arms. “I suppose…I’ll have to accept it. I will not argue with you about it, so long as you are treated well. Now, how do you plan to drive out this disease?”

“I will…decide when th-the time comes,” I reply.

He nods. “I will work to gain your trust, Shoto. Without words, I will prove what you mean to me and what you are to me. Even if I must abolish my ways of drinking permanently—”

“Don’t be…foolish,” I interject, the sedate placidity of my husky voice dulled only by the hapless state of my throat. “There is n-nothing wrong with drinking…until it b-becomes excessive. Wh-When you’re drunk…you don’t realize what you’re doing. You don’t…realize the damage.” It’s as though you are present, yet asleep while the mind of yours that’s rotted away from the alcohol consumption drives your body. “Withdrawal exists, however. Recovery i-is no contest. Fuyumi would have agreed with me.” My pupils roll towards my left wrist.

How do I explain this all to Mom? I ponder while Endeavor thanks me, much to my stupefaction. I suppose…at least I was the one to witness her gruesome death. I can imagine that the agonized expressions she conjured up that now stain my memories are akin to the horrified looks he received after Touya’s disappearance. Those…deplorable expressions. Grasping. Scratching. Writhing. Twitching. Tilted left before right. Right before left. Stretching. Dripping slowly. Fuyumi. Clear slid down. Slithering. Venom in my blood. Splash. A drop. Puddle. Pool. Rivers formed ponds. Lakes. Scarlet lakes…coalescing with achromatic, translucent honey. Cascading. Her life melted down. Withering away. Gone.

Contact and warmth hug my shoulder, forcing an audible but otherwise invisible gasp from my throat. “Not her. Me. Please…” No longer aloft in my vile thoughts as I sink down through reality, I become acutely aware of my breaths as they rush in and out through my mouth.

“Shoto, what do you mean?”

No attempt to console me. Thank you. It’s incredibly irksome when I am perceived as so pitiable a thing so as to require aid. Honestly, it’s mortifying.

“Would you have p-preferred that I had taken F-Fuyumi’s place?” I question candidly, cracking a rueful smile.

His brows furrow, curving downwards. “I abstain from answering that. Why?” Even Endeavor seems somewhat skeptical of the sight of a smile resting on my lips.

It should have been me. “Curiosity…” I say as my smile decays into a neutral frown. Why could I not have been the one to die? “Ah. Have you had a-any drinks today?”

“I’m ashamed to admit that I stopped myself after having four earlier this morning,” he sighs, lowering his head. “I broke a glass earlier today. For the rest of the day, you have my word that I will not indulge in more drinking.” The eyes that first provoke the thought of salacity meet mine.

I still cannot bury the notion that it would have been preferable for me to have died that day. “I’m impressed that…you managed to stop at only four.” I scratch my arm a bit. “Don’t set the bar so high. It might seem relatively attainable first going into it, but after a bit, it’s incredibly difficult to maintain. There will be days when you slip, and perhaps even days of relapsing. Think of it not as failure on your end…but instead as an opportunity to acknowledge fault and learn from there.” I pull away my gaze from him.

I said all that? I think to myself. Most view me as the cold, laconic son of Endeavor. I am always astonished whenever I realize all that I’ve said to someone else. That aside, however, I never cease to provide “advice” that could easily be used against me. Whatever happens to me…be it so. Despite that, I still have a say in how the end of this aberrant story comes to pass.

He nods, closing his eyes with a long, silent sigh. “I will keep those words in mind. Thank you, Shoto. Yet…you speak as though you understand.” His turquoise eyes target my eyes again.

Insight indeed from a venerable man of great guile. “I see.” Turning on my heel to head back outside, I find myself with lips pulling apart and words falling out from between them. “Hope not for what you want. Work for what you want.” Without another word, I exit the house to see Bakugou sitting silently on the front porch.

Reacting like lightning to the sound of the door sliding open, Bakugou wheels his head around and scans my body for any obtrusive wounds. “Well, I’ll be damned. Oi…” He stands up to his feet, inching his face towards mine with inquisitive brows. “Your face is kinda red. Already blushing?” His lips curl into a ravishing sneer before settling back to his neutral expression, yet I still feel warmth licking my cheeks from the sight of his sneer. “I’m kidding. Oh, now you’re blushing. That did the trick, huh? Coldest person with the warmest blush.” A small smile returns to his countenance.

“S-Stop that,” I murmur, undermining my own dismissive intentions with my slight stutter. Why am I stuttering? “Blatant lies.” I turn my head towards the ground.

He snickers, “Oh, I got you good. But there’s no way in hell I’d lie like that to your cute ass…” I can practically feel his smirk pressing against my cheeks mantled with pink.

I’ve only received, ah, flirtatious compliments from you before. “K-Katsuki…”

“God, your stutter is f*cking adorable. Hearing the staid Shoto Todoroki stuttering makes me want to fluster you to hell and back.” He gently pecks my cheek.

“Aren’t my reactions…lackluster?”

He shakes his head. “Lackluster? Only lackluster thing about you is when you play All Might Kart. Teasing, teasing.” He chuckles breathily—tantalizingly.

“I still don’t understand love.”

So long as my thoughts pertain to you, then when I start to think about things I never entertained the thought of, I find myself uncharacteristically “flustered.” It’s as though I’m completely calm, yet the thoughts circulating through my head are perfervid and uncertain, and they revolve around you. I don’t know how to express the emotion I feel when you cause my head to spin like that, but I suppose that I look flustered? No one else makes me feel that way. Even so, that still does not mean that I love you. I cannot allow myself to feel that way.

“Neither do I, but I know enough to say that I love you, Shoto Todoroki,” he teases with his enrapturing, gravelly voice. “Now, tell me how it went. Before you got all flustered, I was gonna say that you look like you were crying at one point.” His forefinger traces down my left cheek.

It’s becoming more difficult to choke down this kindness. “I’d argue that I love you more,” I utter beneath my breath before promptly pushing our lips together. Worthless, filthy, duplicitous. “It went all right. Ah. He knows about us.” I don’t believe I ever directly said that we are in a relationship, but he seemed to assume it to be the case—despite my claim that I did not feel the same way. “I had to lie and say that I don’t love you.” I was prevaricating when I claimed that to be a lie.

With cheeks charmingly tinged in a faint ruby dust, he replies, “Hot damn are you a good kisser. ‘Side from that, though, he’s just gonna have to shut his f*ckin’ trap, because I don’t plan on letting you go.” He spreads his arms out a bit, and I consent to his request for a hug; his arms wind around my shoulder and back. “I mean that,” he whispers with a certain serenity emanating from his words, “Shoto, you ass. You doin’ all right after all that?”

“Yeah,” I sigh, clearing my throat and swallowing down a few petals painted with scarlet.

“You sure?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He raises his brows while tilting my head up to face him. “That's all you’re gonna say?”

Such resplendent eyes… “Yeah.”

“Goddammit,” he groans, kissing the bridge of my nose and leaving it slightly damp once his lips retreat. “I love you…more than I thought was humanly possible. Know that? You better.” His glistening features are embraced by a radiant hue of pink.

“Yeah,” I whisper teasingly.

Bakugou shakes his head. “Asshole.”

-Month 2, Week 2 -

“Fuyumi?” I asked one night while she insinuated me into my futon.

She tilted her head. “Yeah?” She kneeled down beside me, resting her hand on my shoulder.

Why did Dad make me when he keeps hurting us because of me? “Am I really…only here to be the thing Dad wants me to be?” I offered a few saturnine blinks while staring down towards the floor.

“No. No, of course not,” she reassured me while deftly weaving her fingers through my hair. “You want to be a Hero, right? Just like All Might? Saving people with a smile…” The tips of her fingers dug gently through my hair, making faint scratching sounds as she massaged my scalp.

“Y-Yeah. But…why am I here?”

Silence chirped through my room, chilling my skin. Like sandy twigs being rubbed together through the faint soughing of our breaths, Fuyumi continued to run her fingers through my hair.

“I’m certain…Dad has a reason outside of that. He might not say it, but I’m sure it exists.” She planted a kiss on my forehead. “Need anything, Sho?”

I wish I was enough to make Mom happy. “I’m okay,” I sighed.

“Are you positive?” Her compassionate eyes of faded, thunderous clouds met mine.

“Yeah. I-I’m okay.” Am I okay? “Thanks, Fuyumi.”

Her arms held me snug in her embrace. “If you ever don’t feel okay, I’m going to be right here for you to talk to, okay?” I nodded against her head.

“I love you, Fuyumi,” I whispered, nuzzling my head against hers.

“I love you, too, Sho.” She gradually released me from her grip. “Sleep well. We’ll make some soba in the morning for you.”

A drip. An inaudible drip of a saline liquid sinks down onto my desk, briefly curving up before spreading out as a translucent puddle. A drip independent from my tangible tears is the drip of my palpitating heart.

It hurts. Whenever I remember her, it feels as though a part of me is being torn away and sundered into oblivion before my eyes. Like fingers are perforating my heart and ripping it apart. She wanted us to be happy. For a few years, she succeeded in deterring me from mutilating myself. She was holding me together. She wasn’t simply my sister. No, she was befitting of the title of a Hero. What did she do to deserve such a gruesome death? Nothing. Absolutely nothing… Until the end, she was suffering. She was tortured, and I…couldn’t do anything. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Inert with eyes wide, I wasn’t strong enough to save her. So, why not me? Why couldn’t it have been me? Why couldn’t it have been me?

With eyes scrunched closed, I curl my fingers into fists, leaving crescent-shaped nicks in my palms that will more than likely evolve into discrete markings of red. Stifling a tempestuous sob of anguish, I clench my jaw and press down my tongue, breathing with jagged huffs through my nostrils.

It should’ve been me. It should’ve been me. It should’ve been me. Me, me, me. Why… Why wasn’t it me? Why wasn’t it me?! Why did I get to live?!

Reverberating through my chest and temples, my heart is jabbed with whetted, yet dull pangs of pain that clamber through my body. A searing haze of snow ignites my vision, chilling my senses as my thoughts and the abrupt spasms of my muscles plummet and flare up erratically. Cutting through the tumult muddling my mind is the invigorating gleam of a silverish-yellow beneath the light of my lamp and the inkiness of the night; such a sweet gleam evinces a hazardous form of parlous raging ecstasy. Enthralled instantaneously, I impetuously grasp the scissors on my desk as the tranquility of the shadows welding together with the heavily pattering rain crunches through my ability to reliably hear.

WHY AM I THE ONE WHO SURVIVED?!

Unknowingly refusing to sink into a dither, I furiously transfix my left hand and arm with swift, precipitous stabs of the closed scissors curled into my hand. The addictive sensation of my flesh being pierced and seemingly popped by the rapid jabs of the blades benumbs my sense of pain. Writhing and indignantly supplicating for its zenith to be attained, my adrenaline bashes at my skull and impregnates my beleaguered veins.

I should be dead! Not her!

Eyes of crimson boil up from my arm as I mercilessly stab, retreat, twist, stab, retreat… Intractable and relentless, the entropy of my ravaged emotions smothers my mind with the falsified falsehood that is gaiety.

I should’ve f*cking died!

Unable to wholly suppress my visceral whines and sobs from escaping my throat as the scarlet-dipped, dual blades of the scissors bite through my flesh before being shakily jerked back out, I press my teeth down against my tongue. Dull taps of blade on flesh whistle softly through my ears over the pandemonium jostling my head. Fiery throngs of glacial adrenaline adhere to my nerves as the scissors in my hand relentlessly hammer down into my arm.

I DESERVE TO f*ckING DIE!

Now furiously slashing gashes into my arm like the claws of a cat rending furniture, a mildewy, foaming sense of awareness creeps into my sweltering blood. Flicking the scissors slicked over with blood against the wall, I jam my palms down onto the surface of my desk, clawing at the sleek surface with my nails. Agitating the array of self-inflicted puncture wounds on my left half, I rake the nails of my right hand from my elbow to the tips of my fingers while twirling my contaminated nails around my arm.

I deserve every drop of pain. I don’t deserve to be alive. It was my fault she died. If I had killed myself that day, she would be alive! She would be alive. She would be alive… Goddammit, I want you back, Fuyumi. It hurts. It feels like I’m being ripped apart so slowly… f*ck. I want to feel the pain. I deserve it. I f*cking deserve it all. I once would whine at the thought of training and being abused, but now…if Endeavor won’t destroy my body, I will choke down more self-inflicted pain to compensate for it. If I can’t die yet…I want to feel like I’m dying with every passing second. If this filthy, worthless toy that deserves to be beaten from the outside and inside can’t f*cking die…

Beginning to inevitably assuage my volatile state of self-destruction, I grimace at the wildfire excruciating my left arm and hand.

…I’ll beat myself until I can no longer lift a finger. I’ll cut my limbs and cauterize the wounds in an inextricable cycle. I’ll break myself. I don’t…care anymore. All I want is to suffer. Bakugou, I wish you would hate me. I wish you would abuse me emotionally until I can’t feel anything at all. I wish you would be the one to kill me—to torture me to death with a smirk on your face.

Pressing my forehead to my desk wetted with my blood and tears, I gradually suffocate my furious gasps and hoarse sobs, soon cauterizing the wounds I’ve littered myself with. As red and orange talons of flame grip my arm, however, a familiar sensation of petals clawing at my lungs further muffles my lachrymal huffs.

Feebly orienting myself on my feet, I amble towards my bathroom with a dour expression obscured by the hand being cupped over my mouth. Grunting while I breathe sparingly, my irascible lungs necessitate the urge to haplessly hack up the yellow chrysanthemum petals immediately. Wincing as I soon falter to the floor and empty myself of the vivid clumps of yellow petals and green leaves mottled with scarlet, I steady myself and press my hand against my chest. Clawing into my shirt with my nails, I cough twice more before the searing taste of rubbing alcohol, gasoline, blood, and bitter regret swishes around my stomach and is promptly disgorged. Scrunching closed my eyes as I now somewhat resolve the turmoil boiling my guts, I blink rapidly and soon notice that I’ve vomited petals and leaves. Panting fervently, I collapse onto my side with blood and tears staining my clothing.

Perhaps, in a way, this disease being my cause of death would still be considered as Bakugou killing me. Yet, the cause of the disease is a contentious matter. Is it my fault for seemingly falling in love with him, or is it his fault for loving someone else? Was it either of our faults if this disease took root in me when I never loved anyone as the causes of the disease implicate? I want him…to kill me, even if one or none of us are culpable. I feel almost high when I imagine him dismantling me.

Clamping shut my eyes, I decide to wash up in the morning. Although the floor of my bathroom certainly isn’t the most pleasant or comfortable of locations, I would argue that it’s a felicitous position for me.

What gives me the right to want to die like that? I’d like to think…my rationale is now valid. I let my sister hang herself. I exposed a child to it. “Heart of a hero,” huh? I should think not…

- Month 2, Week 3 -

Yesterday, I attended Fuyumi’s funeral after traipsing through my incertitude to reach a conclusion. Much to my chagrin, I fled in the midst of it to purge the petals of yellow blooming within my chest caged by bones. I could detect the matted eyes tracing over me once I’d returned from the bathroom, although I wasn’t entirely certain of why those stares were directed at me. For the entire duration of the funeral, I remained as the stoic, aloof student I was known as to all but a select few.

Natsuo was at the funeral, and he asked me if I was all right to an excessive degree. I harbored no blame that was directed at him, however, and I reassured him a plethora of times that I was fine. Before he left after all was said and done, I candidly questioned whether or not my insouciance perturbed him, and he admitted that he did think it odd of me.

Later that afternoon, Endeavor inquired as to why I hadn’t eaten all day, and I explained that I simply felt unwell from the disease, therefore not technically spinning myself another web of deceit. Endeavor proposed that he would drink one less beer if I ate, and so I did, miraculously managing to hold everything down.

Today, I’ve decided that I’ll be visiting my mom. Although I would have preferred my plans for today to have been postponed to a later date after the funeral was scheduled, I’ve pushed back this day quite enough for my liking.

Forcing down another spoonful of the udon soup Bakugou prepared for the two of us, I swallow thickly, fighting back the noxious sloshing in my stomach. With envenomed lips pressing out towards my left cheek, I sigh softly.

I ate perhaps a fourth of the soup, yet that alone is enough to rack my body with nausea? I inwardly ask myself in a coruscating snarl. I need to eat. I am hungry, but I feel sick. I stare down at the soup, wanting to finish it while I rest my elbow on Bakugou’s dining table. I won’t force it back up, but I cannot be certain that my body won’t reject more.

Bakugou leisurely leans against me, resting his head on my shoulder. “Don’t force yourself,” he sighs, kissing my cheek.

I turn my head a bit from the affectionate warmth wetting my cheek. “I have to—” I have to?— “keep up my strength,” I reply with a bit of a delay in the middle of my sentence.

“Don’t feel pressured to maintain the same fitness you had before whatever the hell this is that’s affecting you. You’ll have all the time ya want to get back there once this is over, but for now, you need to f*cking rest and take it easy. If you can’t finish this, there’s nothin’ wrong with that, ‘kay?”

He’s so damn sweet to me. “I’m not eating enough,” I murmur, resting my head against his. It’s starting to hurt—his kindness, that is.

He exhales slowly. “What makes ya say that?” His head shifts a bit to catch a glimpse at my mien. “Don’t think I haven’t seen how you’ve been constantly nibbling at something throughout the day, save for yesterday.”

I slowly blink at Bakugou’s keen observation. “I… Ah. I’ve gotten thinner,” I sigh, dismayed by my own statement. “Too thin, according to Endeavor.” I hold my lower lip between my teeth, tracing my fingers down my left arm as a shiver of guilt courses through my core.

You were one of the first—if not the first—to point out that I am noticeably thinner. Endeavor informed me of this as well, and he’s mentioned it more than once. Midoriya thought I was starving myself. I’m ashamed that I’ve—

“Hey.” His voice slices through the smog of my thoughts as he gently grasps my hand. “Thin as a stick or wide as an elephant, I’m still gonna love you the same. You’re still gonna be the same handsome-as-f*ck, beautiful-as-f*ck, cute-as-f*ck ass that you are…and you’re my ass.” He flashes a faint smirk.

I shake my head slowly yet firmly to the left and right. “You’re exalting my image, Kat…Katsuki.” I bring my right hand up to my lips, pressing the back of my hand to them from my inability to say “Katsuki” properly.

“Not one bit. What I said doesn’t scratch the surface of how f*ckin’ perfect you are,” he purrs. “But, my God is that cute. You still can’t say my name without stuttering or some sh*t. The emotionless Shoto Todoroki gets flustered trying to say my name. f*cking. Cute.”

“K-K… Katsuki,” I groan softly, feeling as my cheeks are licked by waves of peach warmth. “I look up to you… You’re my best friend.” sh*t. “You’re also my b-boyfriend. You’re…very kind. You’re very attractive. You’re very strong. When I think about you, you’re…blinding—in a good way. Ah…” I trail off, realizing that I’ve maundered over Bakugou for quite a bit.

He slides his fingers through my hair from my forehead. “Well, damn. You’re turning into Deku. But, I digress. We were talkin’ about some sh*t earlier.” He pauses for a moment. “Right. No matter the shape or size, your body’s beautiful, and you’re perfect. I’d kiss every damn part of you from head to toe if I could. I love you so f*cking much, Shoto. Wish I could really show you, but ya can’t tame my love—no way in hell. If you won’t love yourself, then I’ll love the sh*t out of you.”

Bakugou, it hurts. Your love is like a burning blade biting through my organs. It hurts. It’s satisfying. It’s appalling. It’s sweet. It’s irony…really. I want you to hate me, but I don’t want to hurt you. Selfish, I know, but I either want you to be the one writing my ending, or to write the ending myself. It’s selfish to want to escape. Yet…I deserve to die. It’s still my fault. It will always be my fault, and there’s nothing I can do to alter that fact. I’m the only one to blame for this. I don’t want to feel like this, yet I know I deserve it. I don’t deserve something like happiness. I f*ck things up enough….and it hurts. It hurts in a different way from tangible pain, and in a different way from grief or self-loathing.

“Off.”

Beaten from the inside… I let him strip me. I stripped myself. I let it all happen. I hate it…but I want more of it. I abhor the memories, the connotations, the familiarity…but that is precisely why I want more. It hurts like hell. It hurts so much that I wish I could tear my way free of my skin, my flesh, my body, my conscience, my mind, my life, what tethers my identity to “my” of my own essence… Burn it to ashes. Shred it to dust. Exsanguinate it. Anything…

“I said ‘off.’”

No.

“I-I’m sorry, Sh-Sho! I’m SORRY!”

As I press my palms to my ears as if to stop up the intangible void in which the thoughts and memories brewing in my mind are being pulled out of like rabbits from a tophat, a pair of arms gently ensconce my neck. Despite understanding wholly that Bakugou is the one innocuously embracing me to ameliorate the atrabilious quandary feasting on my mind, I reel back from his grasp as cerulean fractals of ice ensnare both of our limbs.

Squeaking out an apology to Bakugou as his hands and forearms are slicked over with a jagged barrage of scintillating ice, he soothingly reassures me, “You’re safe in my arms, Shoto.” Maintaining his level-headedness, he slowly rubs my back with an unfaltering, comfortable grip around me. “No one’s gonna hurt you. I’m right here.” His head gently nuzzles against my shoulder, but even so, I wince and let out a muffled hiss of pain from the wounds I created during my “incident” with my scissors a few days ago.

With short, relatively raspy breaths, I gradually sink back into my typical equilibrium as Bakugou whispers his saccharine words of affirmation to me. Now loosening up my tense arms, I insinuate myself further into Bakugou’s embrace, seeking his warmth from my glacial, rapidly rotating mind. My eyelids lower as his hand knits through my two-toned hair.

“Feelin’ better?” Bakugou soon asks in a feathery, silky undertone that’s like a melody of sweet honey being hummed to me as I nod unhurriedly. “Good. Hope you know that I’d explode my way through the core of the earth just to reach you. I will protect ya at whatever cost, and right now…the biggest threat to you is you yourself, Shoto. Can I see your arm?” He tilts his head so that his imperial ruby eyes meet mine.

He’s so damn gentle and heedful, I think while biting my lip through my vacillation. Just for me, he’d cast his ego asunder and force upon himself a staid state. Even his profanity is currently stowed away. I pinch my left sleeve and pull it up to my shoulder to reveal a myriad of healing wounds and past scars. K-Katsuki…all I want is for you to hate me, yet you’re tailoring your own propensities to my needs.

“Babe…” he sighs in a sonorous, light growl while pushing his fingers through his hair.

“I know…” I stare at my lap, shaking my head. You’d still love me, wouldn’t you? “Pathetic and inexcusable.” I know it’s wrong, and I hate myself for doing it when I know it hurts you, but I just can’t f*cking stop—I can’t just f*cking stop.

He tickles my cheek with a kiss. “Not at all. Shoto, I’m not disappointed in you, and I sure as hell ain’t mad, either. I know you’re beating yourself up. I damn well know it, Sho. But I need you to know that it’s okay. Why? We’re gonna get you through this. But you can’t give up on yourself. You need to put in some effort, and you’ve been doin’ just that.” He looks over my arm again, whispering to himself, “Goddamn is that a lot.”

“What effort?” I mouth, murmuring beneath even the sound of a falling leaf. “I still cut. I still relapse. I still have depression. I still want to die. I still should have died, for f*ck’s sake.” I furrow my brows, scowling as another tsunami of suicidal thoughts sinks my train of thought. “Why couldn’t…it have been me?” I hiss with vitriol splintering my words as I wriggle free from Bakugou.

He stands up to his feet. “Shoto, it wasn’t your—”

Just beat the sh*t out of me… “It wasn’t my fault? Thinking like that would be deceiving myself.” As Bakugou stretches his hand out to me, I bat it away, stepping back from him. Grab me by the neck and deprive me of oxygen. “I could’ve… I should’ve…”

Is it so damn much to ask…to mutilate myself in order to punish myself for everything I’ve f*cked up? I don’t love you, Bakugou, but I prevaricate and play along. I’ve been lying to you. Ever since the beginning, I’ve been lying to you. Wouldn’t it be in your best interest for me to die? Let me die. Well… If I can’t die yet, let me make myself feel like I am.

“Shoto.” He advances towards me, but in response to this, I precipitously snarl, “Don’t f*cking touch me!” As my right half is licked by frost, an ephemeral flash of guilt becomes evident in Bakugou’s eyes. “I’m not him, and I’m never gonna hurt you like that,” he spits assertively, yet his words are undermined by the growing balkiness present in his voice and lilt.

All I am…

A whetted blade of ice erupts from my right palm as I snap, “Precisely.” I unconsciously direct the slender lance of ice at my arm. “If you won’t hurt—”

The soft, smooth serenity of Bakugou’s eyes is churned and contorted into a steely yet malleable storm of fire as he grasps my wrist like a bolt of lightning. “Shoto…don’t you f*cking dare!” he fulminates, peeling back his lips to reveal his glistening fangs as he secures my other arm.

Although the struggle I invest in to free myself of Bakugou’s iron grip is horrifically futile, I nonetheless thrash around in his hold. With hoarse, whining grunts do I bark, “Wh-Why won’t you…let me f*cking self-destruct?!” Cantankerous and desperate, I obliterate my calm, calculated senses in my hapless, selfish supplication for self-destruction.

What’s wrong with me? What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Is that how self-centered and naïve I am?

With a seething lour, Bakugou roughly forces me down onto the floor so that I’m supine against it. “What kind of f*cking Hero is going to let someone do that to himself? What kind of boyfriend would I be to let you do that? What kind of friend? What kind of person? What kind of human being?” He stares down at me with the ferocity of a ravenous wolf and the might of a lion.

This is… Endeavor. Him…in me. Stripping me. In me. Beating me…from the inside.

“I-I don’t know, K-Katsuki,” I whine, “but I don’t c—”

He fervently shakes his head, twisting his grip on my right wrist a bit. “Don’t… Don’t tell me that you don’t care when…every. Single. f*cking time…you deliberately hurt yourself, it makes me feel like an absolute failure as your friend and your boyfriend! Like f*cking sh*t! Like I could punch away the Great Wall of China bit by bit until it’s gone and still not feel like I’m not doing enough… It hurts me to see how damn much you hate yourself. I love you to f*cking pieces, but you don’t love yourself at all. I know you want to die, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of about that, but I can’t help but feel like I’m not doing enough. Every time you cut, I…” He brings my hand gripping the keen shard of ice towards his wrist.

Chapter 10: All I Am

Chapter Text

He brings my hand gripping the keen shard of ice towards his wrist.

No. Why would you... Don't be foolish, Bakugou! Has this love truly driven you insane? Do. Not. Cut.

"K-Katsuki!" I hiss through my teeth; I quiver as I sharply clench my jaw and feebly attempt to pry my hand away from his. "No. Stop. Stop!"

"You do this to yourself a-all the f*cking time... You've done it for years, but you're not surfeited with the scars yet? When's it gonna be enough for you, Shoto? Will it be enough when I find you with mutilated wrists a-and on the f*cking brink of death!?"

I bend my head forwards to bite at his hand, but he promptly apprehends me with his opposite elbow. I deserve to suffer. After all the mistakes I've made, I deserve it. Scintillating sequins of ice begin to envelop my hand, and they soon spread to Bakugou's hand as he jabs the spear of ice down into his wrist with a wince. No!

Spiraling ribbons of pluming fire spill out from my left hand like topaz wings adorned with jagged, amber teeth. "Stop, K-Katsuki!" I snarl tempestuously while soon finding that my body is violently trembling. "Don't... D-Don't!" Huffing harshly as I stare at him with eyelids pinned back in obtrusive trepidation, I assuage the muddled emotions beckoning for me to cast out my army of tears.

He flinches from the flames lapping up at his digits, but he remains otherwise unfazed by my precipitous reaction. "You want me to stop from one minuscule cut, but you aren't satisfied with how many goddamn times you've cut? This puny cut's probably not gonna leave a single damn trace of a scar once it's healed. Shoto, some of your scars make my arms f*cking hurt to try and think about how deeply you stabbed some kind of blade into your own flesh!" His lips squirm and twitch while my eyes follow suit.

Choking dry the blood threading through my heart from the insidious emotions instead taking its place, I huskily growl, "I deserve them—" he forces my hand to carve another mild stream of scarlet onto his wrist— "from—stop!—being s-such a worthless mistake." Twice again am I the one stringing Bakugou's flesh with gleaming, fell decorations of red banners. "Open your eyes and look at wh-what you're doing to yourself! Please... I-I don't... f*ck. K-Katsuki, please..."

"Every f*cking time you make these sh*tty claims that you're worthless and don't deserve to be happy, I'll add another f*cking cut," he spits malevolently, yet compassion burns avidly in his garnet eyes. "Open my eyes? What the f*ck?"

"No... Don't you f*cking d-dare!"

I am acutely aware of the fact that my hypocritical pleas are still selfish, but I'd still say the same...even if I didn't f*cking hate myself. But, because I so heavily desire to burn myself to the ground until nothing of me remains, it honestly augments this fervent, envenomed conviction.

He scrunches his eyes closed before jerking them back open to reveal two bestial rings of scarlet fire. "You're the one that needs his eyes polished to hell and back... f*cking hurts, doesn't it? Don't you feel so damn useless? Th-That's how I feel whenever you mutilate yourself on the inside or outside! It tears me apart, Shoto. I know it's basically an addiction, but you won't stop reinforcing your sh*tty habits! I-I'm trying here to...to make a f*cking difference, but you don't want any of it. And it f*cking hurts!" Strands of diamond slink down his cheeks before dripping down onto my chest.

Odious guilt constricts my body and suspends it in fine wires of whetted glass before slicing sluggishly through my flesh until my body has been cut cleanly apart. "That doesn't mean you—"

"If you want me to stop, then repeat after me," he sibilates with watering eyes set aflame by dire doggedness.

"Why should..." I perish the remainder of my sentence, and I instead force myself to offer a saturnine nod until Bakugou raises the blade of ice from his bloodied wrist.

He nods in return before inhaling slowly. "I, Shoto Todoroki..."

f*ck... "I-I, Shoto Todoroki..."

"...am loved."

"...am..." I hesitate, once again initiating an internal war with myself. "L...Loved."

"I'm not worthless—I matter."

I still refuse to believe it as true. "I'm not worthless—"

"Don't repeat this part back to me, but emphasize the 'not,' Shoto..."

"I-I'm...not w-worthless—I matter." I don't f*cking matter.

He loosens his grasp on my hand as my flames are gradually extinguished; they slovenly dissipate into small, serrated swirls of a striking orange. "My life is priceless."

"My life is priceless." I will never believe these falsehoods.

Bakugou stays his grip on my wrists, but he pulls me up so I'm sitting upright with him. "I'm human," he sighs as his rugged voice is gradually smoothed by a certain placidity slicking over it.

"I'm...human."

I'm a f*cking mistake. I'm a failure. I'm everything Endeavor could have hoped I wouldn't become. I'm nobody. I'm a toy to be beaten from the inside and outside.

He pulls free the shard of ice from my hand. "I have the right to live...and to be happy." Flicking his wrist, the shard clinks against the floor as it skips around.

I hang my head, refusing to meet his eyes. "I have the right to..." I begin in a dour whisper before pausing and clutching my stomach at the repulsive thought of uttering the words I've been commanded to. "T-To..."

His arms cautiously snake around my torso as his chin rests over my shoulder. He nods slowly against my cheek, imploring me to finish my sentence.

"...live," I finally spit while shaking my head in denial, "and t-to be h-happy."

I lost those rights, I internally berate myself. When I let Fuyumi hang herself, I liquidated those rights. So, stop being so damn kind to me. Stop loving me. Regardless of what I do, you never hate me—not one bit. No. You only find ways to heighten your sense of love for me. Bakugou...I don't want to be loved. I want to be loathed for my ignominious existence. As long as it is you, I want you to kill me. I want you to slaughter me in as gruesome a method as you can manage. I don't want to be happy—not anymore. I don't want to be alive, Bakugou, but I can't die yet. Soon. Time is ruthless and waits for no one.

"I'm going to be okay," he whispers, now evening out his breathing as saline plops of his warm, swiftly-cooling tears dive through my shirt and gently kiss my flesh.

"I'm going to be okay."

I should hope I'm never okay. I'll lie without batting an eye. I'll tell you I'm fine. I'll tell you I'm okay. I'll tell you that I'm all right. All I want is for you, Katsuki Bakugou...to break my heart and tear me mercilessly apart. I'm selfish—there's no denying that—but isn't this the ideal option? You've attached yourself to me. If we never became friends...would you have cared when I planned to kill myself? All because you texted me...and even then, I strongly believe that I would have been subjugated by my thoughts long before then. I wanted to die so f*cking much. But I saw your message...and I couldn't go through with it.

"I'm going to want to live again." The embrace he's fastened me into is only strengthened as he nestles me against his broad chest.

I could foretell you would demand this of me, yet... "K-Katsuki, I can't—"

"You can, Sho," he reassures me, much to my chagrin. "This is the last thing I want you to say, 'kay? Tell me...that you're gonna want to live again." His thumb tenderly caresses my right cheek.

Why is it that the longer I search for my reasons to stay—my reasons not to die—the more persistent and torturous my suicidal thoughts become? When first it was I longed to die, I don't believe I wished for my significant other to personally eviscerate me. No. I simply wanted to die, or perhaps slit my wrists until I bled out. Now...

Slipping through a sinkhole of tenebrous, rapidly swiveling emotions, I grip Bakugou's shirt and shake my head against his. "It's n-not—"

"It will be the truth," he interjects in a fragmented growl with his uneven breaths the wind welding wildly with the digging claws of the sapphire waves of the ocean ramming at the jagged, rocky shore; a soft deluge of millions of water beadlets being scooped up from the water and dispersing through the air is the tenacity in his staunch voice. "It will h-happen. It is possible. I promise that, goddammit. I don't break my f*cking promises."

"There's a first time for everything," I murmur begrudgingly.

His constricting grip around me threatens to squeeze my insides until they migrate up into my chest cavity or tear and burst. "There. f*cking. Fore...you can experience for the f-first time...what it's like to want to live again after going through a-all this sh*t. Babe, you've fought for so f*cking long. Don't you dare abandon a battle you can and will win. Shoto, there's gotta be something—anything—that you'd be willing to fight for. M-Maybe it's not even me, but as long as you'll continue to just...f*cking stay alive, that's enough for me. Babe, I want to fight for you. I want to fight for your will to live. I want to fight to protect you until the end. But it's f*cking difficult as hell when you're your own worst enemy."

Offer me not such an epithet with such saccharine connotations, I inwardly inveigh. Why would you brand me with such appalling, blatant lies? No. Call me a thing. Call me an object. Call me worthless. Call me a failure—a mistake. Call me a disgraceful, suicidal f*ck-up. Tell me you loathe me and long for my grotesque, torturous-to-the-eyes death. It's all true. It doesn't matter what you call me if it's negative...because it will always be true in some respect. I don't f*cking matter. I'll repeat that to myself as many times as it takes...until I become numb or I break myself. I want you to tell me the same. I want to become something that you shaped with your very own hands. If, by the end of the equation, my original form expires, then why actively preserve it when the end goal is ultimately to decimate its existence amongst the others? Others? All I want...is for you to beat who I am out of me and make whatever remains into whatever you desire. I am disgusting for thinking like this, but I am devout to my belief—I deserve all this f*cking torment.

"Shoto."

I am a walking paradox. I want to die, but not yet. I want to suffer, but I'm terrified of the memories that savage my mind whenever something provokes their tumultuous awakening. I want to numb myself, but I still want to feel the pain that I fear. I love him but I don't. Who...

"K-Katsuki..." I gasp in a faint, insidious chuckle, "who the hell am I?" My shoulders shakily rise up before falling back into place.

It hurts so much, yet it's as though I can't feel anything at all. I love spending time with Bakugou and feeling his warmth, but I hate it because I don't deserve it—I don't deserve him. I feel like I'm suffocating in sorrow, yet the blazing grandeur of the adrenaline hammering at my head whenever I initiate self-harm simultaneously evaporates that liquid essence and amplifies it. I can see, but it's all been distorted horrifically. I can hear, but it's as though my head is underwater. I can taste, but everything is drenched with bitter regret or the irony tang of blood. I'm alive, but I live as though I've not yet awoken from my sardonic stupor in my realm of dreams. I'm awake, but I don't feel as though I'm alive anymore. I don't know. Inextricable stupefaction has perpetuated my own vanity. I do not comprehend.

His soft, belligerent voice enthralls my ears. "Sho... I wish that I could f*cking tell you, but I can't. To me, you're Shoto Todoroki, my boyfriend, my best friend, and someone who's invaluable to me. I'll never have sh*t to say for what I really feel, though." His glistening eyes of vermillion narrow sympathetically, and had I never known of Bakugou's salient softness around those he truly cares for, I certainly would have interpreted this facial expression as one of scorn. "One day...you're gonna figure yourself out, but you don't gotta do it all alone. I'm right here for ya. Now...please, Sho."

Even if it's a flagrant lie, I suppose I've utilized enough to inveigle others as it is. "S-Sorry. I don't...know why I asked," I mumble in contempt towards myself. "I'm... I'm going to want to...live again." Desiccated and shoddy, my flaccid statement seems almost to befoul the air.

"You shouldn't have to long for the day you die, dammit. I want you to live, Shoto Todoroki. I want you to want to live, Shoto Todoroki. I want you to feel like you're alive, Shoto Todoroki."

Shoto Todoroki...

Caking the atmosphere in a leaden layer of silence, I tightly hug Bakugou and disregard my internal pleas to cease such abhorrent behavior.

Shoto Todoroki? I don't know. I'm the youngest son of Endeavor, or Enji Todoroki, and Rei Todoroki. Son? I wonder... What am I to him? His son, Shoto Todoroki. What is he to me? Endeavor. He has been making progress, but he has also been drunk a few times. Then, how did Bakugou know... Ah. My reaction must have confirmed it. Even so, Endeavor has added a few new wounds to my aggregation of them. I hated it, yet...I want to learn to like it. It sounds appealing until his hands are rubbing my inner thighs with glass. Still.

"Don't you dare die on me," he whispers in a hiss like a cat. "Shoto, without you..." He slinks off into the inky coverage of silence.

I'm going to save him. Even if he beats me until I'm unable to move without pursing my lips and growling in agony, and even if he f*cks me until I break from the inside, I'm going to do it. Beleaguered and the victim of my puerile thoughts may I be, but I have seen with my own eyes the efforts he's put forth to change. Besides...for Mom, Fuyumi, Touya, and Natsuo, I have—

My breath hitches at the wretched feeling of the air entering my lungs causing the petals and leaves to tumble around from being loosened up. Pulling back from Bakugou, I stifle a cough and stagger towards the bathroom, covering my mouth with my hand.

I can't breathe.

"Oi—"

I shake my head while pressing my knuckles against my throat as I reach the bathroom and shut myself in. Silently staring down at the toilet bowl, I open my mouth to hack out the petals, but my body refuses to obey. My chest feels almost as though it's alive as it convulses—like a creature is tearing through it and banging its head against my ribs—and quivers, yet no oxygen dares enter or exit such a vile, writhing beast amalgamation.

sh*t.

I remove my fisted hand from my throat and steel myself with a trembling grimace as I bash my fist into my chest.

My vision's blurring. My head echoes with the liquefied, scratching purr of metal shrieking against metal.

Furrowing my brows at the impact of my hand to my body, I throw one hefty punch at myself and miraculously manage to free a few petals from my body as I spit them out—more accurately, I wedge the petals between my lips with my tongue and wait in the crushing silence of time for those discs of yellow to droop down into the bath of water below.

I still can't breathe. f*ck. What do I do? I'm starting to get lightheaded. This would be impeccable if I didn't have any regrets to rectify. Is that truly why I'm still fighting against Death? To live another day while still wanting to die? To live with dreams of being tortured to end it all and dream with the reality of cutting myself apart to live...

I stare at my shaking hand for a transient tick of time before shaking my head and scrunching my eyes closed as I wriggle and wedge my fingers down my throat in desperation to breathe.

I can't die yet. God, I'm f*cking filthy. I detest this feeling, this action, and everything surrounding it, but I like the end product. Especially as of late. I abhor the burn, but the burn of being unable to breathe is most abhorrent.

Purging the blight of partially-digested petals and leaves from my stomach, I finally suck in a short-lived breath into my lungs before immediately throwing my head forwards in a massive coughing fit. Grasping the rim of the toilet with one hand and my throat with my other, I gag as I gradually retch up the vile flowers of yellow that have neared the zenith of their lifespan. Intermittently inhaling and forcing out the remaining leaves and petals from my lungs, I wince from the raw state of my throat and the thorns of flame which impale my lungs.

Bakugou pounds his fist at the door, but I neither have the strength to open it, nor the voice to say anything.

f*ck... Death is inevitable, but I question how I'll end up expiring. Endeavor? Myself? Bakugou? This disease? An accident? A villain? I don't know.

"Shoto! Oi! Open this f*cking door before I pry the f*ckin' thing off its hinges!" he snarls with harrowed ire while continuing to pummel his hand at the hard, wooden surface.

Staring at the inimical flowers of gold tainted by scarlet, I wince as I flush away the evidence of my disease. I open my mouth to speak, but my throat flares up with a scorching hiss, daring me to make the same attempt twice. Subjugated by my own body, I falter to the floor from conquest while panting like a dog chasing a ball in the seething summer sun.

The pounding on the door abruptly evanesces, yet it bombards my skull with a sickeningly intense reverberation akin to bells chiming deafeningly in my ears. After a brief moment, the bathroom door is torn away as Bakugou growls out a spitting grunt.

"Shoto?!" He swiftly kneels beside me, and as he reaches for my hand, I pull it away; I'd prefer not to have him contaminate his hands with something so appalling. "f*ck... Hey...I'm here for you." He expels a sharp, saturnine sigh while piecing together his tattered composure. "Are you all right?"

Enervated and considerably delirious from forcing my spiked adrenaline to simmer, I nod. This has been quite the mortifying event. Indeed, indeed. I am thoroughly revolted. I frantically gasp on the floor as my brittle breaths slide as smoothly as sandpaper against my throat.

Bakugou hoists me onto his lap as he coils his arms around my torso and chest after asking with his eyes and receiving confirmation from me to do so. "That's it. Just breathe... You're safe here." Despite the solacing words he whispers into my ear, he himself trembles.

"Ah..." I groan in a daft attempt to spit out "Katsuki" from the dusty, jagged remnants of my justly indignant voice.

"Shh..."

Why...are you so f*cking sweet? I cerebrate with a vexed scowl forming on my lips. Only to me will you evince this compassionate side of yourself. Bakugou, I want to f*cking cry, but I don't want to feel like that, but I deserve to feel like that. I want to breathe, but so too do I desire to have you wring my neck until I can breathe no longer. I don't want to be alive, but I don't want to die yet with the hapless quandaries I've yet to ameliorate or abolish entirely.

Dejectedly, I shake my head at him, but while in the process of doing so, he gently clasps my cheeks with his hands, assertively murmuring, "Babe, don't shake your head at me." He presses his forehead against mine while still cupping fast my cheeks; the gradual, wavering glow of a reddish-orange sears my cheeks like incandescent embers. "I love you...so damn much. So f*cking much..." With a long sigh imbued with flittering flames of warmth, he kisses my nose and pulls back from me. "Can you stand?"

I nod while forcing myself to my feet with the drunken sways of my body before plodding towards the sink and washing my filthy hands. Once I've scraped out the filth that I can from my nails, I turn to face Bakugou with my nose pointed at the floor. He nudges my head into his shoulder and rests either of his hands at the back of my head.

How lamentable a feat that the love I encountered and threw away—if this was the case to begin with—would be what tortures the both of us. Selfish. It's so unequivocally selfish that it's almost farcical. Envenomed are the emotions which blithely blight my mind. Beseech me they will, yet capitulate will I not. At least...that is what I tell myself.

"Do you still wanna go back to your house before you see your mom?" he asks while rubbing his knuckles against my head as if to polish it, and to this, I nod. "Tch. What if he's drunk again? 'Then he's drunk again.' Yeah, no sh*t." I shrug my shoulders against his chest. "Sho..."

Her last letter... She always called me "Sho" after I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Fuyumi, why did you listen? Why... Even now, I still wish I had died in her place. Dammit, the beckoning supplication for my skin to be severed is unbearable again. I'm scratching at my arm again. I hate myself.

Once we return to my living establishment, the fetid emanation of alcohol savages my nostrils. I sigh at the acrid odor while Bakugou spits out a baritone growl, demanding that I remain behind him. Meekly following my "boyfriend's" command, I slink behind him like an obsequious dog with its tail between its legs.

Clearing my throat, I grimace at the salty, metallic tang of blood seeping into my taste buds as I gulp down a few petals. I lean myself up against Bakugou for stability as a draining drought of lightheadedness courses through my head.

Against the clock would I appear to run. Running and running, yet it's never enough. If time is an ocean, then I will drown into the abyss of a perpetually-expanding nothingness below. If time is a river, I will shrivel up once it runs dry, fading away with everything around me until all is one and the same. Time. The recondite mysteries of time... Is the "time" we know for our world simply the aggregation of the time each individual has to live? Is "time" a collection of lifespans? Is "time" a timeline? Is "time" a circle? Does "time" ever pause and resume? For all we know, a century could pass within virtually no time at all. I wish I knew the answers.

Shaking myself back into reality, I sigh at the sight of three beer bottles resting by the kitchen sink while Bakugou, who's sidling up along the wall, creeps past the kitchen. "What the hell are we doing?" I whisper to him with bleak, dull words.

"When the hell did you start swearing so much?" Bakugou tosses his head to the left and right. "I thought he'd be in the kitchen, but he isn't. So, now I just want to protect you. Maybe...show him that you're mine and I'm yours, and there isn't a damn thing he can do about it." A jaundiced, ravishing sneer surfaces on his lips. "May I, beautiful?"

"K-Katsuki, you are an ass..." I nod at him and cast my gaze out to the left.

"Always will be, Babe. But, because you love this ass, I'm proud to be one. Just tellin' ya the truth." He joins our hands together and turns my body in his grasp until my back is against the wall. "Tell me if I'm goin' too fast." Unwavering and resolute, his fiery eyes drench my mind with exuberant warmth.

You truly do love me, don't you? As uncomfortable as I am, you can do whatever you want to me. My stomach churns at the memories, the internal and external feelings from then, my own manic imagination... Even so, because it's you, I wouldn't complain if you did the same. Bakugou, shape me. Beat the "me" I loathe out of me. Make me into what you want.

Bakugou slides my hands up along the wall and lays them atop each other above my head. His smirk grows, revealing the slightly rigid protrusions of white from his mouth. Breaths like the steam from a sauna avidly swirl around our necks. My pupils gasp as Bakugou shifts his grip to restrain both of my hands with his right hand while dropping his spare and tracing it up from my thigh with feathery, deft strokes. I shiver at the soft sensation of his fingers snaking up my side and soon enfolding my cheek into their grasp.

Endeavor's hands... It hurt. He wouldn't stop. But, as long as it's you, it's all right, Bakugou. In me... Ripping, pulling, tearing, grinding... A tear in fabric. Pull the threads. Grind it together. Rip it all apart. Stitch it back. It's never the same. It's the same feeling. It's the same fabric. The threads, the stitching patterns, the pulling and tears are gradually estranging that same fabric. It's threadbare. Where... Is it there?

Listening to the tack! Tack! Tack! of my heart like thin metal nails spilling out across glass, a thunderous weaving of a brilliant smog through the dank reservoir of white engulfing my mind dulls the insanity-inducing clatter of my pulse. "Mm..." I find myself humming as Bakugou slowly presses his face towards mine while seductively tilting his head.

A designing glint gleams in his eyes before such a resplendent light is cut away by his sinking eyelids. "You like that?" he purrs in a soft, masculine growl.

No, not particularly, but I can improvise and act the part. You seem...enthralled by perceiving that I enjoy your touch. Touch me, then. Anywhere... I couldn't care less anymore. All I am...

"I like that, Love," I chuckle in a breezy, light undertone. "I like you." I lean my head forwards into the warm, slow jets of carbon dioxide suffusing my facial propinquity, but the fingers clasping my cheek gently shove me back against the wall.

Phosphorescent peach is smeared across Bakugou's pristine cheeks as he nudges my nose with his; he stares at me at a minor angle. "You beautiful f*cking son of a bitch." He snorts softly before wrapping my lips into his.

Oh, how jubilantly my heart soars. He makes me feel oddly alive. Warm. I feel so warm. This ethereal warmth only tightens the noose of time wrapping around my neck. Feeling this alive and warm...only augments my desire to die. What did I do to deserve this fleeting warmth? Nothing. As it is, I'm lying to him. Even if a part of me wishes it could be the truth, I refuse to allow that. I cannot love him. Nothing gives me the right to love him like that. It hurts. It's cold. It's lonesome—painfully lonesome. I feel so hollow and flimsy. But, because of you, I'm still here. What am I fighting for anymore? Why the hell am I here? Who the hell am I? I don't know the answers, but I'm still here. I'm still here, but I'm wilting like a flower. I'm still here, but it's getting harder to breathe. I'm still here, but I'm the one tearing at my own threads.

My breath finally tangles itself with the blooming flowers in my lungs until none of it escapes through my nostrils. I push my head to the side while rolling it along the wall to demarcate my lips from Bakugou's. He immediately releases me, stepping back.

"Didn't make you uncom—"

Unable to speak, I silently hobble towards the nearest bathroom and close my eyes from what I deduce is Bakugou's initial reaction—a misinterpretation—to my brusque cut and run.

"O-Oi, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, Sho," he sighs in a slippery staccato.

Scratching at my arm, I turn my head back towards Bakugou and make a sloppy gesture to him by briefly running my fingers across my throat.

One day...I won't be able to cough them up. Regardless of what I do or how I might struggle, the deleterious flowers will ineluctably sap my breaths until I cease to move. Ah. I felt it. A twitch. A flicker. The flowers were jostled. Surely...

Although initially futile, my efforts to squeeze the flowers and leaves from my system prove ultimately to be sufficient enough for me to breathe again. Once again scrubbing my hands at the sink, I wince from the yowling snips of liquidized pain swishing back and forth through my head.

It wasn't nearly as severe as last time, I think to myself while looking up at the mirror above the sink to see my lucid, grimy reflection. I hate looking at whatever might be staring back at me. "You're f*cking perfect, Shoto." Don't flatter me, Bakugou. Gorgeous, beautiful, hot, handsome, stunning... Enough. I'm nothing like that. I hate hearing those words when they're directed at me. Hate... Do I? I do, yet it doesn't fit quite right. I squint my eyes at my reflection, mustering up a faint grimace before my expression simmers back into its neutral state. Something...doesn't seem the same.

"Why the hell do you care?" Bakugou hisses from a relatively nearby location to the bathroom.

"Shoto is with you," Endeavor replies with a somewhat delayed response.

"Yeah, what about that? You got a problem with him being into guys? Kinda funny in a sick, twisted as f*ck way. I know what you did to him. I know what you've been doing to him, you asshole."

Do I intervene? Bakugou, why are you defending me?

For a moment, silence coils around my ears, but Endeavor's voice soon dismantles its grasp. "'Him,' you say? My gay son?"

I furrow my brows at Endeavor's pointed question. I don't know if I am. I still see no point in love. I did say I would likely prefer another guy as a potential partner, but even now, I don't know. I turn off the tap to the sink and sigh as the conversation between Endeavor and Bakugou proceeds.

"Don't be such a presumptuous sh*t. I know damn well he wouldn't have told you he is...if he is. 'If' is a small word, but hell does it have power. Am I f*cking with you? Maybe. Now, don't you f*cking dare try and varnish over your own crimes. Yeah, f*cking crimes."

"Who do you think you are to talk to me like this?"

"f*ck off, you senile old man. What kind of father are you? Oh, sorry to break it to you, but you aren't one. You're no father. You're an abusive sack of sh*t that let alcohol take priority over its own family. You made Shoto—my Shoto—hurt like hell. Your sh*tty choices made him want to do some horrible sh*t to himself. He did do some horrible sh*t to himself, and that's your goddamn fault."

"In the end, it was his choice to commit to such 'horrible sh*t' that he did to himself," Endeavor calmly retaliates, seemingly either progressing towards total insobriety or drawing back from his drunken state.

I agree with Endeavor, I cogitate while intertwining my hands with my baleful thoughts. I never had to slash through my skin. Fuyumi never wanted me to. She died before I could tell her the truth. My veracity regarding my own health was severed by the glass and scissors I find pleasure in pulling through my flesh. Despite that, I wanted to tell her the truth. How unfortunate.

Even from the bathroom, I can feel the tingling, almost palpable pricks of vitriolic fire crawling up from Bakugou's belligerent words. "Yeah? Touché. Know what, though? You were the predominant influence. To cope with your heinous sh*t, Shoto, my boyfriend, and the person that should be your son took his feelings out on himself." For a moment, all is silent, but Bakugou continues, hissing, "Don't you try and tell me that he shouldn't have felt what he did. Unlike you, he has a heart—a damn f*cking good one. But, it's cold. To resist your sh*tty fire, he froze over his own heart. It's f*cking sad. He h-hurts so damn much that he doesn't want to feel any of it anymore." His splintering voice wedges a frigid knife into my chest.

Hearing how much he understands me...I don't know what to think. He's fighting for me. Words are meaningless, yet so sharp. Words are such fell blades. Words can describe emotion, but they don't have any emotion embedded in their transparent, assumed forms. Words hurt. They're blades—weapons. With words are battles fought. Even if minute at first, words slash out like paper cuts. Words are such fell blades. Keep digging through the wound with the same minute force, and a gash will one day form. It hurts. It bleeds. It doesn't close. It festers. It grows. It kills. It kills so slowly. Words are such fell blades. Bakugou...I must make you feel like absolute sh*t. I'm supposedly your boyfriend, yet I don't feel the same. Even after all you've done for me, I still haven't changed. I'm sorry, Bakugou.

With heavy, perfunctory steps, I soon have my palm pressed up against the bathroom door as Endeavor says, "Is that the truth?" Astonishingly, he speaks not in a domineering manner, and nor does he speak with a spiteful tongue.

Swallowing down the effervescent bile slithering up from my stomach, I open the door and trudge forth towards a half-lidded, sullen Bakugou, and a piqued Endeavor.

"O-Oi—"

With a cold, vacant expression, my eyes burn fervently with quelled exigence. "Th-That's...the truth," I force myself to utter with a voice rubbed against a myriad of jagged rocks. I'm certain he won't remember any of this. "K-Katsuki...if your target was the head...you struck the t-temple." My eyes meet Endeavor's.

You beat me physically and mentally and on the inside and outside, but even then, I want to save you. I do...yes? Surely. I can save you. Before my end is written by time itself, I can save you.

With quivering lips, Bakugou takes my hand into his after first turning his head towards me and flicking his eyes down to my hand. "If all he is to you is something you can do whatever the f*ck you please with, he's gone—he's mine. I will do whatever the f*ck it takes to take him from you...so y-you can't f*cking touch him. Hear me?" Jagged webs of rancor cascade from his lips.

Endeavor's keen gaze fails to discountenance me as his dusty voice drawls, "Shoto is my son, and you will not take him from me." Turquoise blades of ice cause a surge of dissonance to emerge from the burning blades of ruby they lock with.

"If you're so damn ungrateful for your 'son' that you'd beat the sh*t out of him, you never f*cking deserved him," Bakugou snarls as an acrimonious fulmination. "In fact, you never f*cking deserved to have anyone you dragged into your family affairs."

What Endeavor has done to me is indicative of the truth, I remind myself while strumming at my arm with my nails. What is the truth? All I am...is nothing at all. That must be why he...

The Flame Hero flashes an oily, wrinkled expression that squeezes my stomach. "I'm not the one killing him as we speak," he scoffs, making his insinuation blatant to me.

As Bakugou's lips tear open to expatiate his coruscating retribution for Endeavor's seemingly blithe and flagrant statement, I whirl myself in front of him and place my free hand on his shoulder. I shake my head at him, supplicating for his silence.

Bakugou shakes his head at me and presses his lour up into a contortion of ire swirling feverishly with disgust. "No, Sho... I'm not gonna shut myself the hell up." He pries my hand from his shoulder and promptly shoves me aside, muttering an apology without a voice. "Yes, you bastard, you are the one killing him as we speak. Shoto has been through enough.Haven't you realized it already? You massacred the Shoto Todoroki that was your son! You—"

"Shoto is still the son that I raised—"

"Shut... Shut your sh*tty trap the f*ck up." He glances behind his shoulder to me while visibly grinding his teeth. "Goddammit. This is what Shoto wants, so..." He returns his gaze to Endeavor while his body expels a fulminating emanation of bristling, barbaric fire. "Shape the f*ck up, you asshole. You wanna say he's your son? You gotta earn that f*cking privilege. Actions speak louder than words, but words are sharper than any blade." He pauses and inhales sharply. "You see this ethereal angel behind me? Repent."

Endeavor scrunches his brows. "I have already—"

"REPENT, MOTHERf*ckER!"

Katsuki... I see. I am an angel? If that is what you see me as, be it so. I disagree, but...

"K-Katsuki, calm—"

With a livid, bestial mien, he wrenches his eyes open. "Not until this f*cker does as I f*cking say..." Beadlets of sweat snake down his forehead and weave into his twitching brows.

The potent, alluring scent of charred sugar pervades the sizzling air as it fires off a splenetic volley of an incandescent, hefty, dirty feeling through my veins.

"You have no authority over me," Endeavor continues, once again ascertaining his position to Bakugou. "Why should I listen to you?"

As Bakugou's arm tenses and nudges itself aloft, I curl my arms around him to preclude any impetuous outbursts of violence. "Please..." I whisper to the intractable boyfriend I have the honor of breathing the same air as.

You're playing with the fire from the Flame Hero, Bakugou. Your propensity to tread down these hazardous paths will one day backfire. As if I have any right to say that to you.

Bakugou reluctantly nods, conceding with my terse request as he breathes deeply for a second or two. "Why should you listen to me? Why? Because Shoto might not have been alive if... Tch. I won't say specifically if I hadn't been there for him, but for lack of a better response, f*ck it. Your 'son' might not have been standing here like he is now because of you. He might have been six feet under, yet here you stand as the same asshole as you were before."

That...isn't true. He's been changing, Bakugou. It's not his fault. I am wholeheartedly the one at fault. I let myself feel that way. Influence or not, he abused me for a reason—a multiplicity of reasons. I'm not good enough. The only one I think about is myself. I deserve each and every scar. Even if he doesn't know about my self-destructive habits, would he not tell me that if I want to slit my wrists so badly, then to at least slit them effectively? If I hate myself so much, I should convert that hatred into a weapon to eviscerate my selfish life with—I should be happy with what I have, but I'm not happy with myself. If I want to die so damn much every f*cking day...then I should stop being such a coward and simply go through with it since no one could miss something worth nothing.

Without so much as a brief quip to mark his departure, Endeavor silently walks off towards the front door of the house.

"Just where the f*ck do you think you're going?" Bakugou growls with words singed by the sun while spinning himself around to face Endeavor.

The shuffle of the door sliding soughs through our ears twice before evanescing into silence.

You didn't rush after him? I ponder while clinging fast to Bakugou. Why did he leave? Might he be...seeking out a bar? Then... My tenacity coiled around my boyfriend unravels, and I step towards the direction Endeavor left in.

"No," Bakugou sighs, instead pulling me into his arms. "Shoto, the mistakes he makes are his own damn fault." He releases a vexed snort.

He's intoxicated, Bakugou. "His judgment...is impaired," I counter. "We...don't have to a-allow him to...fall victim to those mistakes."

"We also don't have to wedge ourselves into his own goddamn problems."

If you can say that about him...the same should apply to me. You never had to wedge yourself into my own damn problems. It hurts. Love biases people. Bakugou, if I had been an abusive alcoholic, would your views on me have changed? Had your relationship with Kirishima been as strong as what you feel with me, would you have treated me differently? The answer is an indubitable yes. All I am...is a cataract to your eyes. Your views have been blurred by a distorted perception. Bakugou, I'm going to be what blinds you to the truth. I'm your greatest debasem*nt, Bakugou. That's all I am.

Silently leaning into Bakugou's comforting hold, I eventually murmur, "One hand...is all it takes."

I can't f*cking take it. One day... It gets better, right? No. It gets worse. I'm the reason why it's worse. I'm the reason for it all. I might as well erase the source of my problems. I'm sorry for being a burden. I'm sorry I f*cked everything up. I'm sorry for everything. I won't be here anymore. Aren't you all happy now? Aren't you happy that something so worthless finally decided to tear itself free from the seams of reality?

Sih... Sih... Sihk! Sihk!

Pressing together and pulling apart the blades of the scissors in my hand, I nailed my eyes shut and jammed the bottommost blade into my left wrist; the blades were directed to slash not horizontally along my wrist, but vertically. With a hissing, sputtering whine, I brought the blades together against my flesh and began to slowly carve, cut, slice, and chop a pathway up my forearm to my elbow as though simply cutting paper. While sliding the upper blade up from my arm, my phone beside me buzzed, and I habitually glanced over to the illuminated screen to see Bakugou's contact.

Bakugou... I cerebrated as I slid my pupils to my arm being eaten away by the silver jaws of the scissors. I never said anything to anyone. Damn. That looks... I feel sick simply looking at it. It feels phenomenal, despite the pain. Bakugou would never forgive me for this. Damn. I'd hurt him. He's always kind. So kind. Too kind. All that kindness...cut to shreds. My head is spinning. I can't do this to him. Yaoyorozu... Midoriya... Mom... Fuyumi... sh*t. I know that they—damn, it hurts now—care. I hate that they care, but they do, and I'd hurt them. Mom...I don't want to break you. Fuyumi, I don't want to leave you with that. Natsuo, I don't want you to blame yourself for never being at home. Midoriya, I know how empathetic you are, and I never want to see tears in your eyes again. Yaoyorozu, you've done so much for me, and I've still not remunerated your efforts. Bakugou... Dammit! I want it. I want to die. I want to collapse and throw it all away. I'm so tired of being alive, living, and merely breathing. But, when I think about how much I'd hurt them, suicide loses a bit of its appeal. Some. Enough...

Bakugou: Oi. Just checking in. You seemed off today. You feeling all right?

Bakugou: Also. Thanks for hauling your ass to school with me.

sh*t. I'm...going to regret this. I'll wish I'd simply gone through with this. Cut. Keep going. Finish the job. Wait. I'm this close to securing my own death. All I have to do is wait. But...he'd surely think this was his fault. I don't want that. I don't want that at all.

While setting down my scissors after clicking them closed on the flesh of my forearm, I caught a glimpse of a poem from my blood-stained suicide note before rushing myself to the bathroom and miserably attempting to cauterize my glaring gash and minor yet still incredibly deep lacerations from my right wrist. The rushed, maladroit poem read:

I’m sorry for the lies I told.
Now will the truth at last unfold.
I remember looking forward to a new day.
It felt as though the sun would wash my tears away.
I felt so free.
I was happy.
But you never seemed to truly care.
Those pieces of me aren't anywhere.
I was born to serve as a weapon.
Created in your desperation...
I thought that it was all okay.
I learned to hate myself that way.
I couldn't help but cry.
Wondering why, oh why...
Why did it sound so much easier to die?
I would stumble again over the same lie.
I would always say I was fine.
Wasn't that itself a warning sign?
I was given a surplus of love.
I instead fled to the sky above.
"Dad, please don't touch me."
My heart felt heavy.
I thought I would one day understand.
The answers slip by like grains of sand.
I knew that everyone was burdened with being alive.
I wanted to ascend to safety while they took the dive.
Nothing makes sense to me anymore.
It's trampled in my meaningless war.
Was it foolish of me to have wished for happiness?
Why give something so grand to someone who is worthless?
I’m sorry that I wasn’t like the rest.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t give it my best.
I can't escape the feeling of being empty.
It hurts, it hurts in places that you just can't see.
I guess I’ll never understand what this was all for.
It's like I'm unable to feel the pain anymore.
I don't want to hurt anymore.
I don't want to cry anymore.
I don't want to feel anymore.
I don't want to speak anymore.
I don't want to think anymore.
I don't want to walk anymore.
I don't want to see anymore.
I don't want to hear anymore.
I don't want to hope anymore.
I don't want to know anymore.
I don't want to exist anymore.
I don't want to be me anymore.
I’m sorry, but I want to disappear.
As such, I ask that you shed not a tear.
I’m sorry I didn’t kill myself earlier.
It’s better this way, I’m sure.
I’m sorry that I have so much to say.
You won’t hear anymore after today.
I'm not asking to be forgiven for my unforgivable life.
Instead, I just want to be tortured to end all of this goddamn strife.
The world truly is a beautiful place.
I'm certain it frowns upon my very face.
To this beautiful world will I now sever this last tie.
To this beautiful world will I write my final goodbye.

Chapter 11: Antithesis

Chapter Text

Shoto Todoroki
- Month 2, Week 4 -

Awakened with quite the insidious start perhaps an hour prior to my alarm mockingly roaring in my ears, I cover my mouth with my hand and shakily tumble out of Bakugou’s bed. The aggregation of twisting, sweltering pressure from the lack of oxygen chills my blood yet warms my chest as I teeter on the floor and shamble towards the bathroom.

With a grunt, Bakugou shifts around in his bed before the muffled sound of his feet hitting the floor greets me. “I’ll be right outside the door for you, ‘kay?” he groggily reassures me while giving my free hand a transient squeeze.

I nod and eventually find myself spewing a hurricane of flowers, petals, leaves, blood, and other bodily fluids from my system. Now panting and gasping as though I’ve sprinted through a marathon, I feebly wash myself up and return to Bakugou’s side outside his bathroom. Sinking down to my knees like a piece of paper being folded, I press my forehead against my knees as my breathing gradually dulls from its serrated state.

“Babe…” he sighs while sitting me up against the wall and leaning my head into his arms and neck. “You’ll destroy yourself from the inside if you keep coughing like that.” Beaten…from the inside… “Long as you can breathe right now, that’s all that matters to me at the moment. Oi. You know I f*cking love you, right?”

Perhaps a bit too well. I nod and gingerly curl my arms around his shoulders. Filthy. I’m filthy. I’ve tainted your mind with unadulterated love.

His palm caresses my hair with mellow affection. “Good.” He pecks my cheek and lifts me up into his arms. “Why don’t we stay home today so you—”

I shake my head sluggishly. “It’s…fine,” I manage to utter in a charred string of my choppy voice.

“We’ll see how you sound by the time your alarm goes off,” he replies assertively yet dejectedly.

Once I head into the bathroom to take a shower, I throw my clothes to the floor in a curvy pile and glimpse up at my reflection. I’m…much slimmer than I was a few months ago. I’m such a disappointment. I’ve hardly been eating at all. Eating is a chore, and my body seems to agree since I typically throw up whenever I attempt to eat more. I sigh and step into the shower, turning on the tap. At the very least, I’m not nearly as sickeningly thin as I was before. I never had the energy or strength to train. A f*cking failure of a Hero was what I was.

I glance at my eyes in the mirror, and upon locking my gaze with my reflection, I avert my eyes. I can’t see anything but his eye. One of the eyes that begged to see past the clothing. I haven’t eaten yet, but I already want to throw up.

Under the lukewarm water sprinkling down from above, I rotate my arms to gaze at the wounds and scars. Just…one, I tell myself, despite being fully cognizant that “one” likely means at least five. Ah, it hurts. It stings. I like it. Another… More depth. More width. More length. More… Ahaha. I have no self-control when it comes to mutilating myself. I melt down the blade of ice in my hand and hiss at the firecrackers of pain from soap and water waltzing through my gashes. I’ll have to cauterize these.

Once I’ve purged my minuscule breakfast to spare myself the mortifying event of my stomach rejecting it while at U.A. since eating triggered another memory of Endeavor being inside of me, I walk there with Bakugou at my side. Bakugou inquires as to how I’m feeling, and given my acute consciousness of the transparent clock ticking away for my time here, I debate with myself on whether or not I should admit the truth or conceal it. Once the dust has settled in the battlefield of my mind, however, I internally sigh at my superficially pristine lie.

When we arrive at our classroom, Uraraka and Midoriya stand up from their seats.

“Todoroki-kun!” sings Uraraka as she saunters up to me and Bakugou with Midoriya at her side. “Can I try something with you and Deku-kun? It’ll be quick, and I think you might like it!” Her smile resembles Midoriya’s quite a bit, but the inverse of this statement could also be true.

Midoriya sheepishly nods. “I-I dunno if you’ll like it, but, well, uh, never mind—I won’t spoil it!”

I nod at Uraraka and Midoriya, and immediately am I swept up and wrapped into an embrace by the two. With their arms constricting my torso, they hum jubilantly to conjure up a “cute” cadence of soft sweetness. Distorting yet enhancing the tune, however, is Bakugou’s amused snicker and smirk.

I appreciate it, yes, but do I like it? No, not particularly. Being hugged like this reminds me of when Endeavor hugged me before that. What a shame. Odd. I thought my reaction might have been a bit…different.

Another pair of arms secure my back. “As your friends, we love you, Todoroki-kun,” Yaoyorozu chuckles with a voice like a tranquil summer breeze flowing through the dancing light of the golden sun.

“Group hug!” Ashido chirps blissfully while bounding over to the four of us and strengthening the chain of people—rising Heroes—hugging me.

It doesn’t feel right. Seeing and physically feeling that they care…doesn’t feel right. “Right,” though? Was there ever a “right” feeling? I don’t know what to think. A part of me thinks this to be an act of deceitfully ebullient mob mentality. Another part reminds me that such an idea is highly unlikely. Another part tells me my own perceptions could simply be warped. How much different would this feel to me if the guys—excluding Bakugou and perhaps Midoriya—had not been associated with this?

Before long, Hagakure and Jirou nestle themselves into the warm, ever-moving yet placid pond of students. Seven becomes ten, ten becomes fourteen, and in the blink of an eye, everyone from 1-A—including Mineta and excluding Aizawa—have signed themselves up to embrace me and the others in the group hug of sorts. Bakugou is the last to coalesce with the mass of nuzzling bodies that practically threaten to suffocate me with intimate affection.

“Oi…” Bakugou whispers to me amidst the buzzing, soft chatter ensconcing us.

I lift my head up to face him, and like a cat swiping at its prey, Bakugou pulls my lips into his for an ephemeral, enthralling, effervescent flicker of a moment. “I love you…Shoto,” he teasingly chuckles into my ear before drawing his head back and smiling up at me with an indescribable and irresistible look of love permeating his entire being.

Utilizing Bakugou’s smile as a template for my lips to follow, I muster up a dilapidated, trembling smile, and as this feeling of smiling twitches at the pointed crescents of my lips, I blink a few times at a faint click stemming from what I can only assume is the work of Aizawa.

“Great as this is,” Bakugou cackles in a low, husky growl, “you damn extras better back your asses off from my Shoto Todoroki.” A designing smirk ghosts his radiant lips of peach as I tilt my head away from him. “You always do that when you’re blushing…”

“K-Kat—” I press the back of my hand to my lips once the actualization that I’ve stuttered out “Kat” strikes me. “Ah…”

f*ck. That’s unfortunate. f*ck? I suppose he’s right.

Asui nonchalantly covers Mineta’s mouth before the perverse student can utter any flagrant remarks. “I figured something was going on between you two. Ribbit.”

Yaoyorozu smiles sheepishly at us while Ashido vehemently exclaims, “OCHACO, WE KNEW IT! WE CALLED IT!” Her overwhelming gaiety augments my submissive state as Bakugou runs his hand through my hair.

It’s as though the others simply cease to exist. I can hear them. I can see them. I can feel their intense presences. Despite that, all I can see is Bakugou. Bakugou. Katsuki Bakugou. Katsuki. K-Kat. Love. I belong to him. I’m his. He can do whatever he wants to me. As long as it’s him. Him. Bakugou. My boyfriend. My lover. Yet, I don’t love him. I don’t love him? Bakugou. I don’t know love. I don’t know love? I don’t know, Love. Without you, everything becomes matte and dour. Bakugou. Bakugou, Bakugou.

“Hope I didn’t embarrass ya too much,” Bakugou whispers while the rest of the class verbally exalts our relationship.

Bakugou. I toss my head left and right. “Not at all. Simply…flustered, you could say,” I sigh while flicking my eyes away from Uraraka after fortuitously making eye contact with her. “Bakugou—”

“Ah, ah,” he chuckles slyly.

Obey. “K-Katsuki…”

He lifts my chin with his thumb and forefinger, completely disregarding the classroom setting we’re in. “You still stutter every single time, Babe.” His mesmerizing voice of roses and ashes flittering through a cold, crystalline stream pours into my ears. “I’ll let them know that you belong to me and I belong to you…” His tepid, honeyed fingers supporting my chin tantalizingly flick at my jawline. “You wanna take him from me, you gotta pay your way through hell twice over just so I can drag you back myself. Long story short, don’t f*cking touch him.”

Iida swipes his hands through the air like his arms are machines designed solely for the purpose of cutting the air. “Bakugou! Language! And here is not the appropriate place to express your—”

He’s constantly telling me not to be so damn shy. “You say that as though I’ll always be submissive,” I candidly state, providing the unvarnished truth of my mind. “Not the case, Love.” Anything you want me to be, I’ll be for you only. “If a challenge is what you desire, a challenge is what you will receive.” A frigid, flat smirk graces my lips.

Aizawa sighs. “All right. That’s enough, you two. You can continue this conversation somewhere more private when the time is appropriate.” Despite his phlegmatic profile, a faint smile pinches his lips as he looks at the two of us.

“Da-ang,” Kaminari whistles. “A heated battle between two unlikely partners!”

“Bro, pass the popcorn,” Kirishima chuckles.

“Popcorn? Where?” Kaminari slaps his head back and forth, presumably scouring the room for popcorn.

Kirishima wraps his arm around Kaminari’s shoulder. “Don’t you always carry popcorn with you?”

“Oh yeah!”

I shake my head and sit at my desk—I’m still unable to fathom the onslaught of abrupt events that transpired this morning. Eventually, however, the bell for lunch drones throughout the school, and as I stand from my desk to walk alongside Bakugou, Aizawa summons the two of us to his desk.

“If you’re expecting an apology for earlier, I’m sure as hell not apologizing for that,” Bakugou chortles. “Long as Icyhot was fine with that, I’m fine with it.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch as Aizawa slips a hand into his pocket. “I won’t bother to ask about that. I’m certain you two will work things out, hm?” Before Bakugou can force out his reaction to Aizawa’s unspoken insinuation, our onyx-eyed teacher pulls out a pair of envelopes from his pocket. “That aside, however, these are for you two. They’re from Eri. Midoriya received one as well.”

“The hell’s this?” Bakugou mutters while seething silently from his missed opportunity to further prod at what Aizawa previously said. Once he tears his finger down through the top of the envelope and extracts the card from inside, he sighs, “The child invited us to a f*cking tea party?”

Fuyumi held a tea party of sorts for me when we were younger. Her tea was always divine. She was overzealous when I happily agreed to join her. Ah. I’m certain Eri would be thrilled as well. Besides… I exposed her to so gruesome a scene that none should witness in their lifetime, no less at an age of such innocence.

I nod as my posture stiffens and my breaths hasten ever so slightly. “I’ll attend.” I glance down at the card again. “At your house today?” Rather than meeting Aizawa’s gaze afterwards, I stay my eyes on the card before glancing over to Bakugou.

“Shoto, you can’t be serious. You wanna go?” He tilts his head at me.

Aizawa nods at me, and I finally espy the stolid Pro Hero. “I can take you after school with Midoriya. Thank you, Todoroki—she’ll be talking nonstop about this once it’s over.” His expression softens slightly.

I nod at both Aizawa and Bakugou. “It’s the least I can do for her. For what remains of it, she should have a memorable childhood, and a pleasant one at that. I know this would make her happy.” My eyes roll down towards the floor as my childhood memories jerk me between the chains of reality and thought.

I’m still weak if I let him strip me and force himself inside of me. I clamp my eyes shut for a moment, pushing away the thought yet leaving it at the back of my head. What Eri endured is so much more sickening and brutal than what I experienced. She deserves to be happy. Despite what she survived, she is still incredibly kindhearted with authentic compassion and a strong heart. Bakugou, I don’t have a “damn good” heart. I’m f*cking selfish. You shouldn’t love me. I don’t want you to love me. That alone makes me selfish.

Although benign and tailored to slowness, the feeling of my shoulder being grasped relentlessly thrusts my mind back into the past when Endeavor branded me with the letter E. My body becomes rigid and still as I clench my fists and grit my teeth, tucking my chin in towards my chest from the recollection of those filthy hands crawling around my body and jamming and twisting glass into my flesh. Despite my instinctive reflexes to immediately allow my complete subjugation to my supposed assailant, a voice rippling through my mind taunts me with the idea that a part of me would find it to be somewhat pleasant now.

“..roki. It’s just me, Todoroki,” Bakugou reassures me as my flight through the sky of my thoughts is severed by an arrow from Reality. “With us?” Partially aware of the information jabbing through my head from Bakugou’s words, I nod slowly. “Good. Oi, Teach. You don’t say a damn word about this…”

“You have my word,” Aizawa replies before facing me. “Todoroki—” I reluctantly shift my gaze from Bakugou to Aizawa— “I’m glad you have Eri’s ideals in mind, but is this going to help you to seek out happiness?” His lucid eyes of obsidian reflect a dull gleam of solicitude.

This isn’t about me. “She’s a positive influence,” I state objectively while pressing my lips back together before any shards of the truth can drip from my jaundiced mouth.

My right hand gently tugs at the left sleeve of my blazer, and once Bakugou eyes this, he presses, “Course she is, but right now, this ain’t about her. Your life’s more important than a tea party, Todoroki.” His eyelids droop down a bit, causing a pool of shadow to wash over his eyes.

I disagree. “No sh*t,” I sigh, earning myself a queer stare from both Bakugou and Aizawa. “I never said it wasn’t. I implicated that her positivity might influence me.” I grip my ring and pinky finger of my left hand with my right as I curl my nails into my skin. “Regardless…I’m hungry. I’d like to eat.”

“Liar,” Bakugou growls into my ear before readjusting the volume of his voice to speak to both me and Aizawa. “‘Kay. Well, guess I’ll come to the goddamn tea party. Don’t think I don’t see right through you, though, Todoroki. Tch. Look, you and I both know you don’t—”

“Bakugou, for f*ck’s sake…not now,” I mutter dismissively, expelling no emotion in my point-blank utterance.

As Bakugou’s lips part to speak, Aizawa instead interjects his breath, sighing, “Todoroki, I don’t remember you being one to openly use foul language like this. Did something—”

I tire of your asinine prodding. “Yes. That ‘something’ was when my sister was hanged by her own hands. I don’t want to talk about it. Sorry.” I point my nose to the ground and brusquely bat away Bakugou’s hand from mine.

Beaded bracelets of blood fluttered through the air like the feathered wings of a bird. Scarlet-kissed bones and cartilage clicked like the jingling of rocks. Bells of tormented whines surged through my mind.

Every time I think about her, I think about how I should have died. When I think about dying, I think about Bakugou. When I think about Bakugou, I imagine how much emotional pain I’ve inflicted on him. When I think about that, I remember how sweet of a taste it would be if he were to do the same. Bakugou.

“Right…” Aizawa nods and blinks for a moment. “We’ll discuss this more at a better time.”

Every f*cking time… I’m nothing but emotional baggage. I can combust a cheerful atmosphere with so few words. They worry. They care. They want to help. Me. It’s always about me. I’m abashed by it, I suppose. In a way. To some extent? I don’t know.

With a morose nod, I turn towards the door to the classroom and take my leave; Bakugou follows closely behind. While I amble towards the lunch room, however, the familiar particles of an avid static seeps into my vision. The injunction of my breaths is rapid regarding their ingress and exit from my body, but I instead breathe slowly and heavily.

It isn’t nearly as intense or severe as it was then, but I’ve not yet degenerated to such a horrific state. I should hope the same transpires not twice.

While at lunch, I hack up an unpleasant amount of plant matter and blood in the bathroom. Once my disgorging of petals concludes, I meet with Yaoyorozu on the rooftop of U.A. and inform her of the tea party I’m later attending; her smile captivates my attention. Afterwards, Uraraka proclaims to me that she’s been following my advice and feeling a bit better about “everything.” Midoriya inquires as to what I’ve eaten for lunch, and I admit with desiccated enthusiasm that I drank only water—I know he would have checked with Bakugou to verify my answer.

“Do you want any of my bento?” Midoriya inquires as disconcertment seizes his viridescent eyes.

As lovely as I’m sure it tastes, I’d more than likely throw it up. “I’m all right. Thanks. I did eat breakfast, if you were curious.” My eyes retreat from his.

Now, however, Bakugou, Midoriya, and I collect our belongings and approach Aizawa at his desk.

“I-I’m kind of surprised you two decided to come,” Midoriya chuckles while giving Bakugou a blissful smile. “It’s really not like you, Kacchan. Todoroki-kun must have—”

“Todoroki-kun.” It just doesn’t sound right.

“Shut it or die, Deku,” Bakugou growls, but his casual expression renders his threat as an empty one.

Midoriya, when you smiled at him…I felt very strange. “You’re not very convincing, Bakugou,” I comment with the tilt of my head.

Bakugou shrugs, soon smirking at me. “I have my priorities, Shoto,” he teases me.

“You really are an ass, Lord Explosion Murder,” I reply with my typical insouciance while Midoriya offers a small chuckle.

“You f*cking remember—”

Aizawa straightens out his posture and insipidly states, “That’s enough rowdy banter for now. Also.” He tips his head towards Bakugou. “Bakugou, try to watch your mouth around Eri.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Once we arrive at Aizawa’s somewhat minimalist yet modern abode, we’re swiftly greeted with Present Mic throwing open the front door with Eri in his arms and vociferating, “ERASERHEAD!”

“SHOTO! At this rate, you’ll never be enough to surpass All Might. Stop fooling around and start training.”

But…Fuyumi looks sad.

I shudder at the memory seizing my mind, but before I can stroke my fingers at my left arm, Bakugou’s fingers brush against mine. He knew. He knows or can easily deduce what might trigger the upheaval of my deplorable memories. I curl my fingers around his for only a moment, and I retract them the instant Present Mic glances at me after speaking with Aizawa.

“Hi, Todo-chan! Hi, Deku! Hi, Bakugou!” Eri greets the three of us with a beatific smile. “I’m so happy you’re all here!” Seeing such a cordial smile simultaneously warms the air and chills what I’d like to say are my emotions.

How can a smile make me feel so comfortable…yet so empty? So alone? So lost? “It’s because of you, Todoroki, that she can smile at all. It took us a little while to teach her how to smile, but the kid’s a fast learner.” Would the ones that brought her there have allowed her to be consumed by the flames like that? Twice—or, at least, his clones—were there.

“Hi, Eri!” Midoriya cheerfully replies.

Bakugou nods at her with a loosened, silky expression. “Oi.” He gently nudges my side with his elbow, whispering, “She called you ‘Todo-chan.’”

I honestly…like that. Would I think the same if Yaoyorozu and Midoriya called me “Todoroki-chan,” though? It sounds pleasant in my mind.

I wave at Eri as Aizawa gestures for us to enter his house. We receive a brief tour of the place and sit at the kitchen counter where two teapots and a few floral teacups with saucers are.

The kettle… I sigh as my mother’s horrific expression paints itself over my mind and obscures my vision from reality. When I told you that Fuyumi died, you accepted it astonishingly well. Even so, I won’t forget the tears you shed. Even when those silver tears trickled down your cheeks, you attempted to console me. I insisted that I was fine, but you didn’t believe me. You weren’t mad that I lied. You told me it was okay, and even though there were still tears in your eyes, you smiled. Mom—

“Ah?” I spit as my reaction to a hand on my shoulder. “Bakugou, it’s fine.” I nod at him and turn my head to face Eri and Midoriya while nodding at them as well.

Aizawa places his hand on the counter from the side opposite the four of us. “Todoroki, if anything makes you feel uncomfortable, tell me at once.” His staid, stern eyes of charcoal almost make unequivocal his veracity as I stay my eyes on them.

I nod again. “Thanks.” I immediately avert my gaze from him.

I’d prefer immensely not to say anything at all. You don’t need to be burdened by my thoughts. Unless you’d enjoy hearing the grotesque details of how my sister was ripped apart in front of me, I’ll stay my tongue. Ah. Eri… A child’s curiosity knows no bounds, yet she seems dubious. I know what she wants to ask. I know what my answer is.

Midoriya, although certainly discountenanced by the plummeting tranquility of the atmosphere, he questions, “Hey, Eri?” Eri tilts her head at him. “What kind of tea are we having?” His impossibly sweet, tender smile enthralls my eyes.

Why are their smiles so…pretty? All of them. I enjoy them all, with some exceptions.

Eri claps her hands together and points to the leftmost teapot on the counter. “This one’s earl grey! And that one—” she points to the rightmost teapot— “is green tea! There’s sugar, milk, and honey, too. Oh! Me and Uncle Aizawa also made cookies!” Her bursting zest feels as though it jumbles the air and glazes it with sugar.

“Tch!” Bakugou cackles under his breath. “Uncle Aizawa, huh?” His seemingly demeaning smirk caresses my heart like a feather.

Aizawa nods and offers a warm sigh. “That’s me—Uncle Aizawa. The cookies are still cooling, but I’ll start putting them on a plate.” He slips away from the counter and begins plucking the cookies on a tray atop the stove to transfer them to a nearby plate.

“Ah, that reminds me!” Midoriya exclaims while hopping off of his stool and running off towards the front door—and our belongings—before returning with a lusciously red candy apple in his hand. “I brought this for you, Eri.” He grins with a twinkling smile as he hands Eri the candy apple.

Eri expeditiously accepts the gift, immediately biting down onto it and humming softly. “So good! So sweet! Thanks so much!”

Eri’s emphatic exuberance reminds me of how I was once drawn into another world by watching All Might on the television with my mom. I recall how each move and each word that All Might produced would weld together in my mind as I smiled at the greatest Hero from what was once a comforting home. Recollecting the unfaltering mirth present in my eyes as a child, I now question what my life would be like if I’d never transitioned into the laconic, stoic son of Endeavor I’m known as.

“I know how much you wanted to try one, so I made one for you! It was surprisingly easy, although I did have to borrow some red food coloring from Satou.”

Bakugou entwines our warm hands together and nudges his fingers across my scars from the alcohol incident. “I ain’t gonna deny that she’s f*cking adorable,” he whispers as though his voice is a leaf whistling in the wind, “but you’re the cutest ass I’ve ever seen.” His hot, moist breaths lick my ear and seem to spread to my cheeks like wildfires.

Bakugou, not here and not now, asshole, I inwardly sigh as my stomach growls at me. Right. Eat. I don’t want to, but I have to. Shoto, it’s simply breaking apart sustenance and swallowing it, yet you see it as an exhausting chore. I offer Bakugou a deadpan, vacant stare for a moment before mouthing that I love him. I like eating. I do. Yet…I also despise it.

“Can’t help myself when I’m around you,” he continues before his alluring undertone rolls into a casual whisper. “Didn’t eat lunch, did you?” I dejectedly shake my head while pondering whether or not Bakugou simply forgot if I ate lunch. “It’s all right, Babe. I know you’re fighting f*cking hard.”

I don’t want to hear those words from you. “Thanks, K-Kat.”

“Thanks, Eri!” Midoriya sings as Eri pours a steaming stream of green tea into a teacup. “Want me to pour you a cup?” Eri avidly nods and pinches her teacup before holding it up to him. “Okay! Earl grey or green tea?”

“Green please!” Her teacup is soon gently swaying with rings of green lapping up at the curved peripheries of the interior of the cup. “Thanks, Deku!”

Midoriya raises his teacup to hers while poking his pinky finger out from gripping the handle as he gently clinks their teacups together. Eri quizzically looks up at him as he takes a sip of the tea, but she soon follows suit and hums immediately afterwards with glee.

Aizawa places the plate of chocolate chip cookies down onto the counter, and as we thank him, Eri asks both me and Bakugou if we want any tea. I nod, and Bakugou releases a gruff sigh as he nods as well. Once Eri—who’s sitting on Midoriya’s lap to reach me—tips the teapot towards my teacup, I stiffen my posture and begin to scratch at my arm.

“I can’t stand that left half of Shoto.”

“Sometimes I look at his left side and hate what I see.”

“His left side is unbearable.”

I’m sorry.

“Todo-chan?” Eri’s voice drowns my thoughts in the sea of reality which heats my fingertips.

“Ah… Sorry. Sorry.”’ I tilt my head downwards at the fact that I apologized not once, but twice. “I don’t have fond memories with vessels designed to hold hot water.”

What kind of f*cking description did I provide? As if Eri would understand what I intended to explain.

Bakugou’s fingers slowly massage my free hand from dangling at my side nearest him. “He means that things like teapots are bad and should go to he…heck.” With manifest vexation furrowing his brows, he grits his teeth; I can practically hear his raging thoughts.

“How come?” Eri asks, and for her curiosity can I harbor no blame towards as I flinch.

I should be fine with saying the truth, but I’d simply prefer not to say anything at all. I wouldn’t want her to worry, either. No child needs to digest that information. Especially after what she herself has been through.

I languidly thread my fingers through Bakugou’s as I sigh, “There was an accident with a kettle. That doesn’t matter, though.” I shift my lips from my neutral frown to an expression injected with matte verve. “Thank you for the tea, Eri.” Every…f*cking time.

Eri nods and smiles at me as she snatches a cookie from the plate and starts to nibble at it. “Uncle Aizawa helped me make it.”

“Wanna help me make hot chocolate, Shoto?” Fuyumi asked me.

“Yeah!” I jubilantly replied.

“Let’s make some for Natsuo, too. Okay! Do you want milk or wat—”

With pleading eyes, I’d interrupted, “Milk, please.”

Fuyumi chuckled at me, and once the two of us had finished making the hot chocolate, she’d whispered, “Shh. Don't tell Natsuo…but I gave you extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate.”

“Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says, reeling me from my memories like a fish to a line, “do you want a cookie?”

I shake my head. “Thanks. Bakugou?”

“Betcha the cookies don’t top mine,” he snickers while hastily snatching one off the plate as Midoriya slides it towards us; Bakugou’s teeth sink into the firm, softened cookie and easily slice through it. Once his rapturing jaws finish crushing the helpless bit of the cookie in his mouth and he swallows it, he scoffs, “Not bad. I like them crunchy as fu…frick.” His hand curls into a fist.

“Frick?” Eri questions, causing Midoriya to blink sheepishly, Aizawa to sigh, and Bakugou to stifle a mocking snort.

“Friction,” I state, somewhat managing to allay the grief Aizawa must certainly have had rushing through his head. “It would be helpful if you finished your sentences, Bakugou.”

“Shut your fu…fun little trap, Icyhot,” he growls.

“Sure,” I reply to deliberately provoke another reaction from him.

Bakugou shoves the remaining half of his cookie into my mouth. “That’ll shut you up,” he announces triumphantly, now smirking at the conquest of my machination. “Know your place, damn extra. Shi—”

Aizawa rounds the counter and places his hand on Eri’s shoulder. “If you hear words you haven’t heard before or that sound fishy, don’t repeat them, all right?” Eri nods at him. “Good.”

Goddamn. This cookie is incredibly sweet. I don’t particularly like sweets, save for a select few. It tastes…fine, but the sweetness is much too overpowering for what I’m comfortable with. I suppose I did need to eat, but I have quite the premonition of unsightly regret surging across my train of thought.

Once I’ve finally choked down the excessively sweet cookie, I dip my right pinky finger into my tea and cool the drink down until it’s lukewarm. “I might have a ‘selective silver tongue,’ but mine isn’t as foul as yours,” I teasingly jab at Bakugou while pressing the rim of the teacup to my lips.

Let me craft a conjecture… You’ll interpret my “isn’t as foul as yours” as an implication that my tongue isn’t foul. No, I’m acutely aware of what I’m culpable for.

“You ass…imilating dog,” Bakugou barks. “And you wanna say yours ain’t? Like it’s an immaculate white from purity or some crap? Have you heard yourself recently? That’s some foul stuff, considering it’s from you.”

I set my cup of tea down. Bullseye. “I never said mine was an ‘immaculate white from purity,’ I don’t believe.” Your reactions are thoroughly entertaining.

Bakugou swings his thumb down. “Whatever. Now, stop trying to mess with my head.”

“I never said—”

“PIECE OF—”

“K-Kacchan! Todoroki-kun!” Midoriya frantically waves his hands around as Bakugou raises an impulsive fist at me.

“Not gonna speak, is it? I’ll beat the words out of it.”

I’m tired of feeling all this pain…but every time I think I’ve numbed myself to it, it just hurts more when I realize I haven’t. But I feel so empty. I guess pain is the only thing I was meant to be filled with.

A few of my saturnine blinks subliminally subject my mind to reality. “Sorry,” I mutter while habitually slinking my right hand through the left sleeve of my uniform. My nails dig and scratch at the rough strips of scabbed-over flesh working to heal my self-inflicted lacerations while I wedge my nails beneath the loose flaps at the sides or ends of the itchy markings. “Ah…” I exhale as more of a breath than a voice as I unintentionally unfetter a burning chain of satisfying, needlelike jabs as the hasty swipe of my ring finger uproots a segment of one of my larger scabs.

sh*t, I think to myself while gripping the loose, dead flesh dangling from my skin with my thumb and ring finger. Every part of me tells me to rip it all off. Shred it all… Dig into the wound. Make my nails the blades and jab down until I can feel my bones. What miserably hopeless thoughts. I excuse myself from the counter, but, as expected, Bakugou puts a halt to my brusque departure.

“Oi,” he sighs in a rippling whisper, “don’t think I can’t connect the damn dots. Is it—or are they—bleeding?” I nod and bite my lip as my hand retreats from my arm. “I don’t care if the bleeding’s gonna stop in the next three seconds, but we’re gettin’ that wrapped up.” His head, like a mechanical beast, gradually raises itself as he asks, “Teach, you got any medical stuff here?”

Aizawa’s brows curve as he turns to face Bakugou. “What kind…” A sigh escapes his lips once his eyes confirm to him an actualization regarding Bakugou’s words. “Right. Wait here for a minute.” With that, he strides off in pursuit of medical supplies.

“M-Medical supplies?” Midoriya inquires while setting Eri back on the stool beside him. “Todoroki-kun, are your injuries from the attack still healing?” The passionate, altruistic gleam in his verdant eyes nips at my nerves.

As I shrug my shoulders, Eri presses herself towards the counter to peer over at me. “Is Todo-chan hurt?”

It hurts…but it doesn’t hurt enough. “To a minute degree,” I sigh. Yet, even then, the glass surface of the truth has yet to be smudged.

Eri’s eyelids sink down. “Who hurt you?”

“Heart of a hero” my ass. “A villain.”

“Todoroki-kun, wh-what happened?” prods a harrowed Midoriya as Bakugou scrunches his eyes closed from my statement.

Prior to any response I might have been materializing in my head for Midoriya slipping out, Aizawa returns to the kitchen with a basket in his arms dedicated to his medical supplies. “Todoroki, would you mind switching places with Eri?” I nod and sit down at the stool Eri sat at while Midoriya transfers her to my stool. “Can I ask you to roll up the sleeve of—”

While Bakugou stands up and closes the distance between us to stand behind me with a slight scowl ghosting his lips, I haplessly incinerate any shards of the deplorable dignity that I might have had while around Midoriya as I clasp onto the left sleeve of my uniform and slide it up to my shoulder. “Sorry, but this villain is stronger than I’ll ever be,” I begrudgingly murmur as I spit out my envenomed, frigid words with rigid edges.

“T-Todoroki…kun?” From the corner of my eye, as my eyelids fold over my pupils, I can detect the movement of his hand covering his mouth.

I’m…almost uncomfortable whenever I hear “Todoroki-kun.”

“But…Todo-chan is really strong,” Eri says despondently.

Bakugou rests his chin on my head. “Yeah, he’s really strong. One day…he’s gonna beat that ‘villain.’ Right? Don’t you dare poke any holes in there.”

By losing this battle, I’m winning a different one, unbeknownst to you. The person I reflect to you and everyone else—the reflection which perforates my soul with its hideous eyes from the mirror—is simply a distortion of the original person. I’m not the person you think I am. You know me like the back of your hand, but you can’t hear what I don’t voice.

“Perhaps,” I utter in what sounds like a callous, irked retort.

“You won’t be fighting him alone,” Aizawa notes while wrapping up my arm; I find myself tensing up a bit at his close proximity, despite being in a relatively relaxed state. “We’ll put an end to his reign, Todoroki.” His solacing words poke at my mind like scissors being used like forceps.

Alone will I fight this repulsive villain, I remind myself through my self-abasing thoughts. No one else. Me. Only me. Just like this day. This day was for Eri, yet I am now the main attraction. How sad. How unlucky. How annoying. Odd.

I open my eyes through a semi-disorienting flash of light as I adjust from the abrupt, stark difference in lighting, and as I do so, I’m met with Eri’s curious eyes of ruby. “An end to his rain? So…Todo-chan’s sad?”

I don’t know anymore. “I’m all right, Eri,” I reassure her while dampening the keen frigidity of the truth concealed behind such a blatant lie. “Sometimes, villains leave terrible scars where the eye can’t see. It’s cruel. But, it’s all right now…” It’s almost funny how everyone around you is suddenly your antithesis when your dark truth is brought to light—to them. “Why? Because I am here, and I will fight.” A smile parts my lips as I attempt to replicate the smile I gave to Midoriya at the Sports Festival last year.

I don’t like this. Blighted by such a pitiable sight are they. They care. As much as I appreciate the human in them, so too do I seem to turn up my nose at it. No one…has ever cared about me so f*cking much until Midoriya destroyed his position—and his fingers—in our tournament to simply choke away my demons. It’s what a Hero would do. It’s what a friend would do. Odd.

“And we’re going to help you,” Midoriya declares with a sweet, fiery smile. “You can count on us, Todoroki-kun.” He lifts Eri into his lap.

Then, tell me, Mom, Fuyumi, Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, Bakugou, Uraraka, Aizawa, Eri…

Bakugou nods as my grandiose smile droops back into an unfamiliar, awkward grin. “Hear that, villain? We’re gonna crush ya, you got that? Shoto Todoroki, you’re gonna be the victor. Hear me?” His radiant smirk draws in my eyes like it’s a magnet.

…if I had stayed my vile tongue and kept inviolate the truth, would you be seeing me as simply “another person” right now?

My hands start to jitter while Aizawa rolls down my sleeve. I glance down at my trembling hands as my grin twitches and soon melts into a neutral frown. Once the final vestiges of my smile have evanesced, however, Eri leans towards me and presses her forefingers up against the tips of my lips.

“I like your smile, Todo-chan!” Eri cheers blissfully. “Don’t give up. Keep fighting!”

Thank you, everyone, but those are the kinds of words I wanted to hear the least. “She’s like you, Bakugou.” I glimpse at him while Eri returns her hands to her sides. “I’d…like some time to process this all. Thank you.” I stand from my stool and approach the door to Aizawa’s backyard, although the reason why he has a backyard at all still remains an anomaly to me.

“But…” Eri protests.

“Come get me in a few minutes, Eri. I need some time alone.”

“Mom?”

“O-Oh, Shoto… Come get me in a few minutes, Shoto. I need…some time alone.”

Ambling outside, I click closed the glass door behind me with a hefty whap. I nestle myself into the grass and up against the side of the house to mantle my presence from any eyes tracing over me from the door.

I’ve tried to fight. I fight every damn day. What the hell am I fighting for? Why the hell am I here? Who the hell am I? Why the hell does it matter? I’m fighting to understand why I’m here and who I am? No. Why? I understood from the beginning, but curiosity only tightens the noose of time. With such hopelessly hopeful thoughts did I embark on an empty journey to discover a truth to replace the one I buried. Oh. Nothing you bury stays buried. You can always dig it up again. So it may decompose to nothing? It’s not gone. The place in which it was buried is much like a sponge. It never truly fades.

That truth is what estranges me from many of those who have helped me. Yet…even when I sink so far, they’d sink with me. Why? To tell me the truth is wrong? To stop drowning myself in my lies? The mind is awful. I cannot escape from my own mind. No matter how much I might desire to dissociate from the mind which demands that I drown in the blood of my self-inflicted cuts, I have to listen to it every single day. My mind asphyxiates me so softly yet so frequently that there’s always a noose dragging me through what I say is my life, but I’ve not yet been hanged. Every time I try to manually tighten that noose to perpetually liquidate my breaths, I can never die in time, and I’m kicked back into the endless nightmare of life to try again and again to bring it all to an end. I’m always suffocating in the grip of my mind, but every goddamn time I try to die, the noose loosens. All because my mind is so damn awful…but my body refuses to succumb to it. Even so, opposites attract. Negate. Counterpoise. Neutralize. Stabilize. They’re osmotic, in a way. Ah. Oh, how lovely are the loathsome antitheses that stand before me. I’m okay with the truth—my truth. I know the clock is ticking. So, the question is…

Exhaling sharply, I extract a blade of ice from within the web of digits of my right hand. Fully coiling my left hand around the glistening shard of sky blue, I draw across the scarce scars on my right arm when compared to my unsightly left arm.

I’ll simply cauterize the wounds and wash off the hardened blood later. So long as not a drop spills onto the ground here, I’ll be fine. Fine. Bakugou. Fine… “Stop trying to f*cking tell me you’re fine when I know you’re not. I don’t think you see how goddamn terrified I am of losing you.” Bakugou, I am fine. Previously, no, not at all, but…it’s all starting to blur. Something in me has changed. I feel different. I’m far from the same person I was a few months ago, yet I am still "Shoto Todoroki." I understand what I was initially going to be, but I’ve not a clue anymore. Why do I exist?

Adding a single new decoration of scarlet beads to my shoulder, I relish the piquancy from splitting apart my flesh.

I feel…very odd. I feel similar to when resentment had consumed my being and turned awry my vision, yet it’s not the sa—

The glass door moans out a windy, gravelly purr as it rolls open.

Bringing my blazing left hand with wisps of flickering orange and yellow leaping off of it to my wounds, I begin to cauterize them.

f*ck, I scold myself as I scramble with a torpefied mind to burn shut my remaining few wounds. I don’t think she noticed the bloodied blade of ice I have. Ah. I take the fragment of ice into my mouth and lift my head to face Eri.

“T-Todo-chan?” Eri sighs with disconcerted eyes as she approaches me, who’s finally managing to pull my sleeve down. “What…are you doing?” She now stands beside me, unable to resist staring at my right arm as I splinter the ice in my mouth and crunch it down.

The thought of being cared about sickens me. “A bagatelle. Ah… It doesn’t matter.” With my words ringing in monochrome, I release a frosty breath from between my lips.

She leans her head to the side, bringing a closed fist towards her chest. “Bread? But…how come you were hurting your arm?”

The tart, acrid emanation of remorse for allowing myself to have conducted such a selfish plan and expose once again an innocent child to my own filthy matters coats my tongue. “I was…making it better,” I reply while internally rebuking my duplicitous yet truthful statement. “Eri, can I ask that you don’t tell anyone about this?”

She nods. “But, doesn’t it hurt? I don’t get how it’s better, either.”

I feel…unnaturally calm, despite the pleasuring pulses of adrenaline flaring up in my veins. A grin grapples itself to the edges of my lips. “Eri, I’ll tell you a secret if you can keep it a secret between us.” She fervently nods. “I’m…not like the others, Eri. I feel better when I’m hurting. A lot better.”

“Fuyumi? Can you help me with something?”

“Of course, Shoto. What’s wrong?”

“Can you keep this a secret? Pinky promise?”

She nodded warmly at me.

“How come…I cry when I’m not supposed to, but I can’t when I’m supposed to?”

Eri’s large eyes of vermillion evince a torrent of wilted emotions mired down by perplexity. “It doesn’t make you sad? Todo-chan never smiles. How come?”

“Not at all,” I maunder, rolling my words beneath my breath. “I don’t like my smile. My smile…is a disappointment. Not smiling helps me feel alone.” Loneliness was once so painful, and it was always a thorn in my side that I could never quite dispatch wholly.

“I like your smile, Todo-chan!” she whimpers in a rattling squeak. “Your smile’s so pretty—like your eyes!”

The levity of my rusted grin arrests Eri’s resplendent, sympathetic eyes to my lips. “Pretty?”

Pretty… My smile isn’t pretty. I wish it could be pretty. Pretty…

“Yeah!” Her small teeth of white are unveiled from her enamoring smile as she plops herself down onto her knees in my lap and tucks my torso into an embrace. “I don’t want you to be alone, Todo-chan. So, no matter what, I wanna keep smiling until you’re not alone!” The magnitude of such blissful, slovenly words reaches beyond the depths of what I imagine Eri imagines to be fathomable.

As though inadvertently returning a loose embrace to her from perhaps fearing that she’ll dissipate into nothing if I fail to hold her close, yet also that I might shatter her fragile form if I hold her fast, I gently rest my head over her small shoulder. “Eri…thank you.” I slow my breaths as a feathery barrage of petals toss themselves through my chest.

Your iron will thoroughly astonishes me. I want to be alone, Eri. That is…simply what I deserve. Even if I’ve still not erased the pain, I’ll force myself to relish solitude. To burn away what tethers me to this “me” and this identity I share with it, I’d like Bakugou to mold my path. Ah. Bakugou… Is that why? I see. In pursuit of ostracizing myself from the world I hold in my hands…

As the glass door slides open again, I release Eri from my grasp and clear my throat as I descry Bakugou. “Oi,” he says with a faint smirk. “Cuddly, ain’t he? Didja know he’s my boyfriend?” His garnet eyes drift to my eyes.

Even if I have no right to love you…something in me shivers with zeal whenever you imply that I belong to you, I find myself contemplating as I stand up. Bakugou, I can’t help my selfish desires. I want you to hurt me. Make me uncomfortable until I tremble with utter dismay. Break me. Erase me with a smirk.

Eri squints curiously at him while I stifle a cough. “Boyfriend? Aren’t boys supposed to be with girls?”

Bakugou gestures for us to follow him inside, and he hardens his gaze on me to necessitate my compliance. “Nope. Princes don’t just save princesses—they save other princes, too. But, hey…I wouldn’t say Shoto isn’t my princess.” He offers a sly smirk as Eri and I slink back inside Aizawa’s house.

I raise my brows at him, remaining silent. I’m your princess? I’m not certain I comprehend. Are you saying that I more closely resemble a female? Odd. That sounds…so pleasant. It sounds…right. I think I’d like it if he called me something like that again, but I’d prefer not to be a burden for asking. I shrug and excuse myself to the bathroom to momentarily cleanse my system of the plant matter growing within it. The flowers…are beautiful, yet so deadly. These petals have marked me with scars I cannot reverse. Those scars will be my end…unless they aren’t.

While washing my hands, my phone rings, and after I’ve patted my hands onto a towel, I draw my phone from my pocket to see Endeavor calling me. “Yes?” I sigh while wedging my phone between my shoulder and ear; I roll up my right sleeve to wash away the streaks of sanguine and charcoal on my arm.

I always seem to find one excuse or another to cut, I inwardly mumble. I can’t remember if Endeavor is aware of it or not. I don’t believe he is. Endeavor…what was your childhood like? Was my training what you endured? I don’t know.

“Shoto, where are you?” His words are rigid and hasty, yet a sour emotion seems to echo through them. “Tell me immediately,” he presses without clemency to pepper his words.

You sound…different. “Why?” I sigh again as I lather the splatters of dried blood with soap and water.

“Your note. Shoto, I will find you immediately,” he seethingly asserts. “This is not about me. This is about you. This is for you, Shoto.”

What? “What note? You sound desperate.” An undertone of a scowl traipses over my lips.

“Now isn’t the time to play dumb. Shoto, I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I never saw how much I was hurting you. I didn’t know you were suffering. I didn’t think a few drinks would cause me to touch you… I didn’t know you were lying when you told me I needed a hand the most. Shoto, I’m asking you to reconsider.”

I didn’t think one decision of mine would f*ck up both of our lives. Of course you never saw how much I wanted to die. Of course you never saw how much it hurt. Of course you never saw how many of my wounds I carved onto myself. That was not your fault.

“That’s in the past,” I mutter as my expression voids itself of emotion.

Endeavor pauses for a moment. “Then…why are you doing this?” he demands as his words are perforated with a certain solemnness.

If I didn’t know, I’d think you’re currently drunk. “What the f*ck are you talking about?”

“I’m not standing by when my son is planning to kill himself,” he growls with vitriol burning through his words.

He found that note? The suicide note and poem from that day was…by the letters Fuyumi sent me. Ah. Was he looking for those? To put his filthy hands on my belongings… It’s hard for him, Shoto. You should know that. At least he wants to change for the better. I…never want to stop hurting myself. That is something I refuse to lose.

I audibly sigh. “That was from a few years ago,” I lie aridly with frost-covered breaths. “I got over myself. I’m with Bakugou and a few others right now. I’m fine, Endeavor. I’ve been fine. Bakugou helped me through it.” Blinking heavily, I use my flames to dry off my arm before tugging down the sleeve of my uniform.

But for all you know, I could be lying. For all I know, I could be lying to myself.

He exhales sharply. “You’re very strong, Shoto, but that doesn’t take back the note you wrote because of my actions. It doesn’t change what you did to yourself because of my clouded vision. Shoto…I don’t want your forgiveness, but I’m sorry. I knew it was wrong of me to excessively drink, but I couldn’t see how much it affected you. I’m going to become both a Hero and a father you can be proud of, but I have more work to do than I—”

You would believe me so damn easily? What if I had been standing at that bridge as we speak, and I had simply been lying to you? What if I had jumped, Endeavor? f*ck. Now that I’m thinking about it again, my mind is telling me to do it. To jump. To f*cking end it. But…I can’t. It hurts. But I can’t die yet.

“Cut the bullsh*t,” I interject with a coruscating placidity to my brusque statement. “I already gave you my goddamn forgiveness.” Even if this forgiveness is insincere and rotten, and even if I will forever remember the filthy memories I have of you, it would be advantageous to offer forgiveness. “I know what you’re working towards, and…I’m proud of you.” Give them what they want to hear. “You heard me right.” I cut our call.

I feel cold. I feel hollow. I feel numb. It’s as though nothing truly matters—like every step through time is negligible. Like my eyes are open, but I’m not awake. Like I’m alive, but I’m not here in reality. Like I can feel, but I can’t feel the difference between feeling something and feeling nothing at all. Like there are only remnants of me here, but I keep walking through life and wondering when I’ll finally cease to exist. Like everything is a tedious task to ultimately accomplish nothing. Looking back on it now, was I not desperate to sever my own sorrow? Haven’t I done that? How funny. How cruel. How f*cking torturous, yet I don’t feel a thing.

Ah. There’s the deplorable pattering of my heart. Bakugou, what gives me the right to have a heart? I don’t deserve it when all I want is to mutilate it. Bakugou. Your name warms me up. You cause my heart to frantically thrash around. You make me feel very odd… Pleasantly odd. Bakugou, you’re the reason why I’m here. I owe everything to you. So, I’ll provide to you all that I am. Mercilessly beat the Shoto Todoroki you know out of me. Please, Bakugou. If you want me to want to live, then suffocate my desire to die. Isn’t it funny how our differences are what bind us together in what you refer to as “love,” Bakugou? Isn’t my blithe mirth paradoxical, Bakugou? Isn’t it just so f*cking humorous but easily anticipated that a coalition between two polar opposite individuals only created another antithesis?

My phone buzzes as I turn the knob to the bathroom door.

Endeavor: Shoto, did you attempt after the note, or was it prepared for if you ever did?

Me: I’ve never attempted before.

Remembering how it felt not to simply slash a blade across my flesh, but instead snip through it… It wouldn’t kill me to do it again, would it? Right now, I don’t have the asphyxiating drive to die like I did then. But I want to feel like I’m on the verge of death. It’s such a pleasant feeling, and yet I detest such a feeling. This disease certainly supplements such a desire. How cruel. It now forces me into a situation in which I will die if I fail to hack up the flowers. But when I can’t breathe and the flowers refuse to budge…I fight through my waltz with Death. All because Bakugou exists, I evade the bullet to my temple. How long can—

Endeavor: Why was the note smudged with blood?

I step out of the bathroom and begin to shuffle towards the kitchen.

Me: I wrote it after a training session.

What a terrible lie. I wouldn’t put it past him to believe me, but I highly doubt he will.

“You all right?” Bakugou queries once I cant against the counter after sitting down.

I nod as my phone vibrates. “It…hurts to breathe, but I’m fine,” I whisper with a voice that’s been torn by the petals breaching its foundation.

Endeavor: Why didn’t you treat your wounds? Shoto, don’t lie to me.

My entire body is paralyzed by a paroxysm of scalding recollection.

“Don’t lie to me. This doesn’t hurt. You waste of a f*cking life, it doesn’t hurt.”

“I-I—”

“Be f*cking thankful.”

Be an obedient toy… “Thank…you f-for t-touching me…”

In Endeavor’s filthy embrace as his hands outlined my body above and beneath my clothing, I had forced myself to spit out my thanks for his scandalizing touch. I trembled. I wanted nothing more than to split from his appalling presence and vomit up everything inside of me—namely my memories of what transpired. But all I could do was listen to his breaths, my throbbing heart, and the rustling of his hands on my body. All I could do was wait as he examined me with his frigid touch.

“Oi. Oi. Oi.”

With the faint smack of my lips parting and my tongue being torn from the roof of my mouth as I eject a bullet of a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d buried into my chest, I brush my hands across my opposite shoulders as my memories of a separate pair of hands dances across my body again.

I swallow down a dry gulp. “It’s nothing… I was reminded of something. Sorry.” With jittering digits, I scoop up my phone from the counter since it had slipped through my grasp at one point—unlike what I had been capable of endeavoring from the belligerent flashing of my past that had been precipitated.

Me: I grabbed the paper beforr I treated them.

f*ck. I seldom err while typing. Damn.

Bakugou’s hand hovers within my peripheral vision, and he waggles his hand to arrest my attention rather than touching me. “You textin’ that piece of sh*t?” he asks once I’ve lifted my head to him.

I reluctantly allow myself to nod. “He isn’t drunk. Something he said just triggered a memory,” I answer with benumbed words.

While Eri offers a perplexed head tilt and Midoriya stays his eyes on the counter, Aizawa approaches me from the opposite side of the counter. “Do you want a glass of water?” I find myself unable to look at him—an intimidating man.

Bzzt.

“I’m all right. Thanks.”

Endeavor: I believe you. Have you ever self-harmed before?

Me: No.

Endeavor: Good. I don’t want you getting into that.

I turn off my phone and fold my hands into my lap to refrain from tearing into my arms with my nails.

Why the hell do you believe me? f*ck. I want to lance through my arms like I did after Fuyumi died. I feel empty, but my thoughts are manic. Even for a moment, I want to forget. Cutting is my ideal option. I can’t. I can’t scratch, either. What…now? I’m desperate. I’m calm.

Bakugou sighs, “You sure?”

I bite my tongue down against my lower row of teeth as acute nails of blistering pain are hammered into the soft clump of muscle. “Mm,” I affirm with the nod of my head.

I’m…fine. I want to bite my f*cking tongue off, but I guess that’s fine. When did this all become so normal?

Chapter 12: "All I want…" [1/2]

Chapter Text

Shoto Todoroki
- Month 3, Week 1 -

After consistently insisting that I wear my school uniform during the daily Quirk training sessions at U.A. because of the practicality of not having my Hero outfit at my disposal in the midst of a villain attack, today is the day I finally change into my Hero outfit. While plodding towards the male locker room with Bakugou at my side, Kirishima skips up to us.

“Bakubro, Todobro!” he calls with animated eyes. “How are you guys?”

I believe I prefer “Todo-chan” over “Todobro,” but I wouldn’t want to bother anyone with such paltry inanity. “Fine,” I reply while internally disparaging what now remains of my health as we enter the locker room.

Bakugou weaves his brows together. “Eh? Why the hell’re you asking me? Get lost, sh*tty Hair.” He flicks his fingers outwards in a wave as though they’ve welded together to become the tail of a fish.

I walk up to my locker and unlock it, soon retrieving my folded, virtually untouched Hero costume. Without a word, I silently begin to unbutton my blazer as I gravitate towards my thoughts that stagger above the sky.

Why am I so…uncomfortable? As though I don’t belong in this room with these people? Now tugging off my blazer, my expression twitches. The more I see myself, the more flaws I see. Yet…it feels like being in this body is wrong. I glance down at my trembling hands. One month…or less, I cogitate while setting my blazer in my locker. The inextricable melody that twists about my body cuts further into my skin. Even without me, time will go on. They won’t forget me, regardless of how much I wish they could. Entitled under Endeavor, they won’t forget. I am someone. Yet, I am also no one important. In the end, all I am is selfish. To subject myself to the hell I deserve, I hurt—

A cacophonous symphony of dissonant entropy sets ablaze my crystalline liberty. Now plunged into a state of heightened awareness, I peer around the locker room for the source of the tumult ravaging the previously convivial scene, but the pairs of eyes spread throughout the room threaten to strangle my obtrusive figure.

“T-Todoroki-kun…” Midoriya yelps in a whisper, averting his eyes from me.

“H-Hey, are you okay?” Kirishima questions with harrow-stricken words.

“Oi,” Bakugou hisses venomously while rearing up as he steps in front of me, “back your eyes the f*ck off. You think he wants to be stared at like he’s a f*cking alien? Didn’t think so!” With a snort, he turns his head over his shoulder to face me.

It doesn’t sound right. It never sounded right, but as of late, I spurn such…unpleasant epithets.

Although saturnine and lax, I press my arms against both sides of his chest and drape my head over his shoulder. “It’s fine, Bakugou,” I assure him while ascertaining my phlegmatic persona. “There are stalls I could have used if I wasn’t fine with it.”

Something about others being disgusted by what they see is oddly appealing to me. Well, I suppose the appeal is roused more from it being a mutual agreement that I am disgusting, and disgusting to such a degree that would issue commentary regarding it. It’s true. I want to hear the truth, even if my veracity was incinerated long ago. I don’t want your sympathy, pity, or pretty words that conceal spoiled ulterior motives.

“Sorry, Todoroki,” Kirishima apologizes.

“Y-Yeah,” Midoriya seconds. “But…are you okay?”

I surreptitiously peck the back of Bakugou’s neck with my lips. “I’m okay, Midoriya,” I lie softly while nodding at him and the others in the room. “You can thank the villain attack I failed to pull my weight in for the majority of these.” I shuffle out from behind Bakugou and soon start to pull my Hero costume on.

“The villain attack that was on the news a few weeks ago?” Tokyami queries. “There was one unnamed casualty.”

“Holy crud did you take a beating…” Kaminari sighs. “I’m glad you’re alive, but that’s impressive.”

The only reason someone would f*ck trash as worthless as me…would be to beat me from the inside. My gaze falls to the floor. Just for me…she kept fighting in that noose. She killed herself for my sake. Why… Why? I still wish it had been me. My misfortune seems almost predetermined. Fuyumi…

Bakugou clasps my hand tightly. “Watch what you say, goddammit,” he spits at Kaminari.

“W-Wait! T-Todoroki-kun, were you…”

I should have foreseen this. “Tokoyami, you are correct,” I murmur while slipping on my boots. “Bakugou, it’s fine—I’m no longer a prisoner of my past or blood. Midoriya, you could say that.” I sigh as a pair of emerald rings widen. “If you’re curious about the unnamed casualty…it was my sister, Fuyumi Todoroki. Her death…was my fault. That’s all I’ll say.” My fingers trample my left sleeve, and much to my chagrin, my Hero outfit is considerably baggy.

f*ck. I can almost guarantee that Midoriya will ask me about this. “Todoroki-kun, are you really okay?” No, but you’ll never hear me admit the truth. “Todoroki-kun, have you not been eating?” Oh how pleasant it would be if I could eat without it all later being disgorged. Todoroki-kun this, Todoroki-kun that… Excuse my rudeness, but you can be awfully—what’s the word I’m looking for?—annoying. Yes. I think…

Nonplussed gasps sunder the silence asphyxiating the air as I turn on my heel and head towards the exit of the locker room.

Kirishima shakes his head. “No way!”

“Todoroki-kun, wait!” Midoriya pleads.

If I tallied up how many times “Todoroki-kun” has escaped your mouth, I wonder what the total would be. I still think I’d prefer Eri’s nickname for me. Why am I thinking about that?

I stare at my mutilated wrists that I’ve slit countless times while I silently walk off. “Sorry,” I mutter insouciantly.

As I reach my hand out for the door to the locker room, my shoulders are firmly grasped, and instantaneously do I find my equanimity subjugated by dismal habit. My knees buckle beneath me as Midoriya brings me back fo my feet, uttering, “Todoroki-kun, pl—”

Now abundantly aware that I capitulated to slinking to the floor to allow Endeavor to beat me as he saw fit, I snap my eyes shut and push away Midoriya’s grasp on my shoulders. “I kindly ask you to f*ck off,” I state while remaining as the prey of no emotion.

“Deku!” Bakugou snarls in irked exasperation.

“K-Kacchan, just give me a moment!” supplicates an evidently desperate Midoriya as he tackles me to the floor of the locker room. “I c-can’t just let you walk off after all th-that, Todoroki-kun. Y-You’re shaking. I didn’t mean to trigger anything, but I know I did, and so I’m sorry about that. But, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t believe you anymore, Todoroki-kun… I-I know you’re not as cold as you come off as! So—”

Enough. “You’re wrong,” I sigh, completely relaxed and unfazed beneath Midoriya. “I never expected anyone to believe me, but I never expected anyone not to believe me, either. Midoriya, here and now isn’t the time. You already saved me from my past, and for that, I am eternally grateful.” I meet his gasping eyes of emerald.

Midoriya’s expression shivers and folds into a resolute mien of vehement disagreement. “You know wh-what I haven’t done yet?” I tilt my head at him as my breaths fill my ears. “I haven’t saved you from yourself!” My eyes narrow a bit, but I neither confirm nor deny his statement of conviction. “I’m right, aren’t I? I care about you, Todoroki-kun, and I’m very worried. We all are.”

“I see. If that’s the case, then I’d prefer you save your profound emotions for someone who means something—” I f*cking did it again— “more to you than me. Save it for someone who needs it more than I do. Now, release me.”

He vigorously shakes his head. “Not yet. Because…you’re saying that like you don’t mean anything to us, so we should just brush you aside and watch as you go down in flames.” Precisely. “W-We’re not going to do that.”

“I f*cking hate to admit it, but the nerd’s right,” Bakugou growls as he approaches the two of us and points at me. “Don’t you dare think for a damn moment that we don’t care, asshole.”

A creaking chorus of affirmation chimes through the room.

Do you think I’m f*cking blind? Hell no. I know you all care. Even if it’s only superficial, it’s genuine. I’m tired of hearing this. I’m sick of the reassurance. I’m almost repulsed by the love which befouls the air. So be it if I must plaster on emotion to liquidate your image from my mind.

I slightly part my lips as I paint a faint lour over my blank countenance. “Bakugou… Midoriya…” Struggling to force a familiar, saline fluid from my eyes, my darkening expression twitches.

When I was in the hospital a few weeks ago…I couldn’t stop crying. Pitiable, really. The tears endlessly swept across my cheeks while I kept telling myself to die. Die, die, die. “I should’ve f*cking died.” I should’ve died, indeed.

“Shoto, don’t bottle all your feelings up,” Bakugou sighed once I finally managed to quell the livid tears that savaged my eyes. “Don’t bottle up your thoughts, either, dammit. Lemme hear them. They’re not bothersome at all. Unlike a certain sack of sh*t, I think they matter one helluva lot. Means more when more than one person knows, but I know you’re probably not comfortable with saying what’s on your mind. I don’t blame ya, but don’t think you’re bothering me if you wanna tell me something.”

As Midoriya’s lips mouth inaudible words, I start to recognize the foreign pull of my lips forming a dilapidated smile.

It would be so much easier…to deny myself of my emotions. I don’t want them anymore. Did I ever truly want them? “Men don’t cry.” So…why the f*ck can I never stop crying? It’s as though my lungs are being filled with my tears, but no matter how much I cry, I just can’t seem to finally die. I will never drown by my tears, and yet it feels like I am. It burns. It hurts. It aches. It throbs. But…the pain never stops. I might possess physical strength, but my heart is frail from the tears and blood I’ve drowned it in.

The world around me is smeared and blurred as I blink away some of my forced tears.

“It really doesn’t matter.” A fortuitous double entendre.

“The hell do you mean?”

“Sorry.”

Bakugou cautiously yanks me to my feet while successfully yanking me from my thoughts as well. “C’mon, Babe.” He hugs me tight. “Still got nothin’ ta say?” His fingers tousle my hair.

A filthy liar, I inwardly berate myself as I nod slowly. Midoriya, you’re in my way.

“Todoroki-kun, w-we just want you to be honest with u-us and yourself,” Midoriya says with a smile. “We’re always going to be here for you. Whenever you need us, we’ll be right here.”

What saccharine yet insipid words you have to offer. I nod. “Thank you…I-I suppose,” I answer almost ruefully. How the hell do you believe the bullsh*t I’m giving you? “Shouldn’t we be off?” I add, now changing the subject.

“Teach’ll understand. Take your time, Babe. Oi, Deku… I don’t owe you anything, you got that? Now, scram.”

Midoriya nods sheepishly. “G-Got it.” He scampers off into the gym.

Bakugou’s expression drips with ire. “Shoto, what the f*ck?” he groans softly while insinuating my hand into his.

“What issued the ‘Shoto, what the f*ck?’” I inquire with a shaking voice as I rub my eyes. Don’t immediately revert to your natural propensity to sound like you’re f*cking dead inside.

His grip on my hand tightens. “What the f*ck is going on with you? You’re all timid and silent one moment, and the next you’re brazenly expatiating a wildfire. Practically emotionless to crying and smiling. Alert and dogged to torpid with a couldn’t-give-two-sh*ts kinda impression.”

Quite mercurial am I, no? “Bakugou, please…not now,” I sigh.

“Goddammit. Fine.”

Once we’ve conversed with Aizawa for a few moments, we’re sent off to gather with a group for a tag team race to the finish. The two of us are paired with Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, and Jirou. Within a matter of seconds, it’s announced that our team will begin second after Midoriya’s group: Uraraka, Iida, Kirishima, and Tokoyami.

“You’re okay with this, right?” inquires Yaoyorozu as she espies the scars which swell across the visible flesh of my arms.

I nod. “Right. I can’t change the truth, but I can accept it.” This does not, however, imply that I’m attempting to reconcile with myself. “I guess I figured that the truth was bound to come out one day, so…I’m adapting to that now rather than later. One day, I’ll be okay with that one.”

She smiles, and I can’t deny that her smile truly is quite the arresting spectacle. I force a flimsy smile for her in return, and she chuckles a bit.

Sometimes…you feel like a sister to me, Yaoyorozu, I think to myself while returning my gaze to Midoriya’s team.

Scrupulously tracking the quandaries hurled at Midoriya’s team, I sigh a bit at the thought of sprinting while repelling enemies. It’s less a matter of sprinting speed and more a matter of how efficiently you can take down your opponents. Even so, movement speed is still essential—even if the opponents are taken down instantaneously, all is lost if you’re unable to expeditiously make your way to the hidden location of your next teammate. I watch Midoriya swiftly advance from one opponent to the next. Take out all the enemies, then locate your next teammate. Communicate who’s been tagged and who hasn’t. Keep going until everyone is tagged. Once everyone is tagged, have the last person make their way to Aizawa.

Before long, my team disperses into the mountainous terrain provided to us, unlike the marsh Midoriya’s team was faced with. The arbitrary pick to start off the team exercise is Yaoyorozu, so the rest of us scatter and tuck ourselves away into fairly convenient hiding spots for one to find. I situate myself behind a mass of rocks and boulders, and once all settles into silence, Aizawa announces that Yaoyorozu may begin.

Listening to the commotion swelling up in the background, I simply await my obligated opportunity to slaughter my training opponents and either locate another teammate or sprint to the finish.

With my arms exposed like this, the urge to cut is killing me, I think to myself as Bakugou’s war cries saturate the air and inform me that Yaoyorozu and Bakugou are no longer candidates to locate. Seeing my scarred skin provokes an unyielding desire to scratch and cut through those scars. The girls were immensely concerned when they saw my arms. No one mentioned self-harm, so I’m thankful, but I can imagine it crossed some of their minds. With striking speed, Bakugou’s voice falls into silence, and replacing his roars is the firing of electricity. That leaves me and Jirou. f*ck… I can’t stop scratching at my arm. It certainly doesn’t help that the scars which never properly healed are constantly itchy. The slick, puffy skin brings about the desire to shove my nails into the raised mounds of flesh, but I can’t do that here. f*ck, stop f*cking scratching. I keep saying and thinking “f*ck,” too. Bakugou.

Eventually, my eyes dart to Jirou, who’s breathlessly running towards me. “You’re…the last one!” she pants, soon slapping my hand with hers to signal my ingress into combat.

Dashing out from behind the rocks, I scour the area for foes and Aizawa, and immediately am I met with a throng of training dummies closing in on me from every angle. Sprinting out into the open, I kick back an advancing training dummy to size it up. The dummy sails backwards, colliding with the ground before standing back up.

If they aren’t overwhelmingly powerful, I can unleash a single attack to eradicate the ones within a large propinquity of me. However, I still need to maintain an ample amount of energy to be able to locate Aizawa. Ah… f*ck. The flowers…

As the seemingly interminable sea of bouncing training dummies marches my way, I prepare my attack to erase them all, despite the harsh drawback I’ll receive from sapping the majority of my energy.

It’s hard to breathe. It hurts. It’s uncomfortable. I hate this feeling. Suppress it. For now, suppress it and concentrate. Think. Focus. Do not take your training lightly.

“Shoto, do not take your training lightly. Stand. You’re not like your siblings. You will surpass All Might.”

But I don’t want to do that. I wanna be with Mom. I want to play volleyball with Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Touya.

A thin, slick layer of frost crawls across the mountainous battlefield as I plunge the temperature from generally cool to freezing. The training dummies slide swiftly along the ice, but a fraction slip and ram into others, creating chain reactions of piling training dummies. Slamming my right foot against the ice beneath me, the ice splinters, and a piercing stallion of sapphire erupts from the ground, severing a few of my foes. Caging myself in with the tidal wave of enemies charging forth, I endeavor to minimize the effects of my attack to the rugged terrain and the people on it. As my body is consumed by a vortex of spiraling strands of coruscating fulminations of amber and gold, I find myself struggling to breathe.

sh*t. Finish the attack, I command myself, but my aggregation of seconds dedicated to dithering results in the nearby dummies lunging at me. Dammit. You would do well to succumb not to vacillation. I ground myself by forcing ice crystals to jut from the ground around my feet.

Promptly buried beneath a lake of relatively weak training dummies, I internally rebuke myself as I ignite the air within my general vicinity with an abrupt flash of heat while spinning myself an explosion that detonates the glacier of ice I formed. Massive chunks of cerulean, training dummies, and surrounding rocks are thrust at breakneck speeds from all directions at the dome of ice I formed. Spiderwebs line the semi-translucent barrier I created, and within mere moments, the palace of ice shatters; it shudders as it crumples to the ground in a frosty gale. Utilizing my Quirk again to shield myself with my ice, I find myself unable to breathe as any laggards from the training dummies are crushed beneath my dome of ice.

I can’t breathe. Ah. But, I can see Aizawa. Move. I can make it. Ignore the exhaustion. Go. Keep going. Go beyond…Plus Ultra.

“All foes have been defeated!” Present Mic exclaims.

Lumbering towards Aizawa’s hazy figure in the distance, I grimace as my body pulsates with the paramount injunction to receive an intake of oxygen again.

Don’t give in now. You’d suffer a gruesome beating if this training had been issued by Endeavor. It burns. My lungs are feverishly expanding and contracting without any oxygen flowing through them. I feel so disoriented and heavy. The world is spinning and hot. Help…

Before I can achieve breaking a distance of about fifty meters between Aizawa and myself, however, I falter to the reflective shards of azure ice beneath my feet. Unable to gasp for air, I stare at the murky ice I’m kneeling atop with my mouth agape.

“You’ve got it, Todoroki-kun!” Midoriya cheers.

“Right on, Todobro!” chants Kirishima.

“Come on, Todoroki-kun!” shouts Uraraka.

It hurts so f*cking much, yet it feels good. My head is ringing with twinges of pain. I feel hot on the inside, but my skin is frigid to the touch. My eyes burn. My lungs are on fire. I feel like I’ll burst. The frenetic world is spinning. I can’t breathe. Why here? Why now? Move…

I lift my head while my heart hammers at my temples and my lungs thrash from oxygen deprivation.

Get up.

“Get up.”

“If you don’t want the sh*t beaten out of you…” Ah. Is it so wrong? Don’t be foolish. Not now. My mind is laughing at me.

Like a sewn doll, my body creaks forwards until my chest spills across the minefield of ice I created.

Anything…

The cool, inky warmth of my eyelids shielding my eyes as I clamp them shut fleetingly allays the nausea jabbing and pulling at my stomach.

Don’t pass out here. Get. Up.

I curl my hand around my throat as if to manually roll the flowers pricking my throat free.

“Send in Recovery Girl!” Aizawa sharply announces, likely realizing that I’ve been incapacitated by my disease rather than simply physical exertion.

“Oi!” Bakugou pipes up as his voice soars through the air.

f*ck. They won’t… I can’t… Stop…

The thundering tramp of footsteps smacking the ice littering the ground pounds against my ears, yet it’s muffled by the relentless droning of the hum suffocating my mind.

An explosion rips through my consciousness.

I can’t die yet. I want to die, but not quite yet…when I have so many debts to pay off. Ah!

While my vision is swallowed up by a razing haze of snow, I finally start to cough up the flowers taking root in my lungs. My horrific retching chills the air as a deluge of flowers fall from my lips and onto the crimson-stained ice below. Burning breaths of air scorch and cut my chest through my revolting coughing fit.

Bakugou wraps his arm around my rapidly jerking back while my consciousness flutters and drifts away towards the sky. “Hold on, Sho,” he snarls with grief slathering his words. “Hear me? F-f*cking hold on, goddammit!” Incandescent fury coalesces with pungent, zesty apprehension.

Does he not know? I ask myself before the world rapidly contorts into a gnashing whirl of buzzing, grinding, and clicking; soon enough, everything is smothered by darkness.

- Month 3, Week 2 -

Swimming through my subconsciousness, I glance around the fuzzy, dismal confines behind my eyelids. The slightly disorienting pull of my body seeming to levitate from the mire I wade in causes my eyes to flutter open.

Where? I question while wincing as I cant my head through the blinding lights of clarity from reality. I’m alive. I have less time than I anticipated. Now… Ah. The infirmary. I feel extraordinarily nauseous. Who?

A gruff, domineering voice summons Recovery Girl to the room as I attempt not to stare vacantly at my lap once I sit upright.

Bakugou? What happened? Ah. The flowers. This churning in my stomach will not subside. I can’t comprehend anything going on. I feel so groggy and fatigued.

A warm hand grasps mine, so I gently squeeze the hand back for its warmth from my frozen digits. “Shoto?” Bakugou calls, sitting part way on my bed. “Oi. Shoto?”

There’s too much going on, and I feel so damn dizzy and nauseous… “Bakugou,” I whisper, and the instant I’ve uttered his name, he ensconces my body into a hug. “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry I’m not dead yet. “Bakugou, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be ali—”

“Bullsh*t,” he inveighs. “Shoto, I would’ve f*cking lost it if you died there. I saw you…trying so damn hard to breathe. I didn’t know this was the disease you had!” His grip is slightly reinforced. “Babe, do you not l—”

I swiftly nudge Bakugou off of me, causing him to blunder off the bed and wobble on one foot. “K-Kat,” I desperately plead with enervated breaths, “I’m…going to throw up.” I glance up at him as Recovery Girl enters the room.

Bakugou’s head scrutinizes the room until he espies a trash bin nearby and sets it beside me. After a few moments of breathing heavily, I void my stomach into the trash as an acidic river of plant remains clumps at the bottom of the bin. Pulling back, I bite my lip at how my throat sizzles as I notice a few relatively intact yellow chrysanthemum flowers, but the majority have deteriorated. I avert my eyes from the glaring truth and set the trash bin on the floor.

Recovery Girl cautiously approaches me. “Todoroki, do you feel better after that?” I shrug, and once I meet her eyes, I recognize the grimness glazing over them. “Then…you need to either receive the surgery or— “

“I love him with all my goddamn, motherf*cking heart,” Bakugou acrimoniously snarls.

Bakugou, why? Why, Bakugou?

“—make your love requited between yourself and the one you love,” Recovery Girl continues. “Todoroki…you need to decide within the next five—preferably three—days.”

“Get the f*cking surgery, Shoto!” Bakugou demands. “Obviously…you’re the one that doesn’t feel the same way. So, what the hell does it matter if you lose the feelings that don’t f*cking exist?” His striking eyes of ruby refuse to entertain the idea of glimpsing into mine.

Yet, you still… “That isn’t true,” I counter, despite my flaccid position already leaving me at a hefty disadvantage against Bakugou.

His hands ball into fists. “Is this how much you hate yourself? You’d fall in love and cut down those feelings just to guarantee that you’d suffer as you slowly die? Is that what it is?” He grimaces.

Exceptionally close, yet still so far from the target. “No, it isn’t. What I feel—”

“Feel? Feel what? Sure you’re not f*cking delusional?”

I don’t know anymore, Bakugou, but whenever I’m around you, I feel alive. “So, all the emotions that were asphyxiating me—the ones that made me want to die so f*cking much—were just delusions? Those didn’t mean a damn thing to you? We both f*cking lied?” I shake my head.

Bakugou sharply inhales and exhales. “No… Th-That’s not what I meant, Shoto. Tch. Didn’t see the holes in my logic. Just…lashed out.” With an abashed wince, he peers around the room for Recovery Girl, but she seems to have slipped out to allow us some time alone. “Didn’t mean to. Look, I’m not lying when I say I love you, Shoto Todoroki. I ended my relationship with Kiri to be with you, and that relationship… I thought that that was what true love felt like. Never thought I’d fall head over f*cking heels for my friend. I ain’t goin’ back to him, Shoto. But, oi… If you wanna say I could’ve been using you, think the f*ck again! What could I have possibly gained? Nothing.”

“Do you think…I would’ve f*cking slept with you after Endeavor did what he did if I thought you were using me? If I never f*cking loved you?” Then…do I? “Goddammit, I do feel—love included.” I sound…like you. “But you were far from wrong when you claimed that I don’t want to feel anymore. K-Katsuki, why do you think I’m still here? Why do you think I’m still fighting to see another day? Why do you think I can pick myself back up when I’m lying broken on the floor? Why I h-haven’t slit my wrists until I’ve bled out? You. You’re the only reason why…”

Despite everything I’ve said, I will remain steadfast with these thoughts of mine. You cannot change my mind. Even if it’s selfish… Even if it’s wrong… Even if it causes only harm… You can’t take this away from me.

His arms encircle my neck. “Babe…” he utters in a husky undertone.

“Love…” I return as my heart pulses through my head. “I’m sorry you—”

He softly shushes me. “Whatever it is, don’t be sorry, Sho. Don’t wanna hear it. I’m…so, so f*cking happy you’re here.” He sloppily jams his lips against the back of my head with profound verve.

A sticky wax of ardent affection stains my cheeks in a faint hue of lucid vermillion. “You’re…flustering me, Love,” I sheepishly admit; I’m flabbergasted by the effervescent entwinement of our rapid, harmonious heartbeats.

With levity licking his laugh, he whispers, “You’re cute as f*ck when you’re flustered, Sho. Seriously, you’re f*cking precious. So damn cold…but so goddamn hot and cute at the same time.” The warm tip of his tongue strokes my earlobe.

“K-Katsuki—”

“I swear to God, I’m gonna savor that stutter of yours until the day I die. And I hope I don’t die anywhere in the near or distant future. I wanna keep you here at my side, though. Call me an ass for it, but that’s the kinda sh*t you gotta live with.”

My eyebrows sink down a bit while my eyes subliminally count the grooves running atop my hand. “You should h-hear your own stutter, Beautiful. My…ethereal Kitty Kat.”

Bakugou’s cheeks are sprinkled with a sugary, pastel pink. “Oi, oi… ‘Kitty Kat,’ huh? Tch. You’re…” Tender silence mellows the air. “f*ck it. You’re mine, Baby.”

I belong to you. I’m yours. I’m yours, Love. All of me…belongs to you.

I nod while forcing myself to release a dampened chuckle and a small smile. “Commendable chutzpah, Darling.”

“Hut spa? The f*ck is that?” he asks as his cheeks ripen with a red that closely resembles cherries.

“Mm… What an elusive, superlative flustered state I’m staring at from you,” I tease him to pry through his ego as I shakily find a sense of equilibrium when my feet hit the ground.

He scowls. “Y-Yeah, right,” he scoffs in manifest denial while steadying my body.

“Cute.”

“Shut up!”

I clear my throat as a knock arrives from the other side of the infirmary doors. “Ah… How long was I unconscious for?” I inhale deeply.

“Over twenty-four hours,” he sighs as Recovery Girl steps into the infirmary again. “Had me on edge the entire time.”

After being reminded that receiving the surgery to remove the parasitic plant thriving in my body is of utmost importance, hearing quite the dull spiel about my mental health, and being asked about my home life, I’m released from the infirmary, and I walk with Bakugou to his house. He informs me that his parents will be gone for the next three days once we enter and take our shoes off.

While I glance at my phone to check the time, I expel a heavy sigh when I realize my lock screen has been crammed with a myriad of unread messages

Almost six in the afternoon, I think to myself as I look at how many messages I’ve accumulated from a group chat that seems to include everyone from Class 1-A, but the title of the chat is incredibly capricious. Over three…thousand messages? I don’t have time to read through everything.

“Did I miss anything important from the group chat?” I question while shaking my head at the absurdity of how many messages were exchanged while I was unconscious.

Bakugou tosses me a package of dorayaki. “The idiots will be idiots,” he murmurs while we stroll off to his room. “Oi. You should eat, Sho.” His gaze falls on me from over his shoulder.

I don’t particularly see a point anymore. “I’m not very h—”

“Shoto, don’t you dare bullsh*t me,” he groans while tossing his bag aside by his desk. “Babe, I don’t even think you ate anything yesterday. Somethin’ happen? Before, you were saying that you weren’t eating enough.” His brows dip down.

I flick my eyes to the floor. Even when I purge the flowers and petals from my stomach, I seldom manage to hold down any of my meals. Now that I know of what the future entails for me, however… My nails gently glide down my arm as I lean up against the wall.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking unless you tell me.” Bakugou snatches the dorayaki from my hand and swiftly dismantles the packaging. “And I wanna know, Sho. I’d rather know the truth than be left in the dark to wonder what the hell goes on in your mind.” His teeth tear through the snack as he rips off a bite and uses his free hand to splay his fingers out across the wall above my left shoulder. “Oi.” As my eyes meet his, he locks our lips together and nudges the soggy piece of dorayaki he tore off into my mouth.

“Mm?” I mumble in a soft hum while chewing and soon swallowing the fraction of dorayaki. “Mm…”

That was…exceptionally odious. Yet, I can’t help but desire more. Anything you want… Make me yours. Make me hurt. Make me feel so disgusted with myself that I forget the feeling entirely.

“Off.”

As Bakugou pulls back a bit to presumably bite into the snack again, I advance my lips back into a tenacious embrace with Bakugou’s. I run my hands along his shoulders, ruffling his uniform as we simultaneously tilt our heads to deepen the kiss.

Our hearts beat as one, Bakugou. So…stretch and shred mine until it can no longer suffuse your sweet, radiant melody with its jaundiced growls. Can you do that for me?

Perfervid entanglements of our burning breaths deftly dance across our necks as slick, small buttons are slid through loops of fabric.

Can you choke to death the nettling anomaly that stands before you?

The dusty roll of fingers and fabric weaving together and splitting apart melts down and languidly adheres itself to the prominent huffs of our heartbeats ricocheting throughout our chests.

Can you beat the mind this vessel belongs to until it at last becomes torpefied and utterly ineffectual?

Amidst the sultry song of affable ardor, a refreshing gale of rejuvenation sweeps across the two of us as our blazers spill onto the floor.

Momentarily is our kiss shattered as Bakugou whispers, “Hey…Sho, I need your—”

“Take it,” I hastily answer while licking my lips as the faint sweetness of Bakugou’s saliva and sweat brushes across my tongue. “I-I consent.”

It hurt when Endeavor was inside of me. I was terrified. My mind swelled with paroxysms of incapacitating fear. I couldn’t break free. He wouldn’t stop. Again, again… I can still vividly recall the acute burning sensation I felt. Men…terrify me. Ever since Endeavor became abusive and lascivious, they’ve made me uncomfortable. I’ve felt uncomfortable with the fact that I am one. Even so, Katsuki is f*cking perfect. So be it if he were to one day rape me. Only him.

He leans his forehead against mine. “Long as you’re positive…I consent, too.” As I nod avidly, his enamoring lips suck mine into their hold.

Can you cut into each of my scars and dig up the sardonic, inimical memories which benumb my mind until I’ve been surfeited to my breaking point?

Wistfully waltzing together through warm, gooey reservoirs of saliva, our tongues intermittently mingle while our hands slide down to thread our belts free from our bodies.

Endeavor… No. He will never be Endeavor. It doesn’t matter, regardless. Touch me however you want. I don’t care, Bakugou. I’ll prove my undying devotion to you. But, in exchange, I have one selfish request…

The cool clunks of our belts clinking on the floor augments the tapering of my strand of sensibility while my chest is held tightly in Bakugou’s robust arms.

“The instant you’re uncomfortable…tell me, and I’ll stop,” he reassures me while our reverberating hearts knock at the other’s chest.

Chapter 13: "All I want…" [2/2]

Chapter Text

I nod my forehead against Bakugou’s and brusquely reverse our positions to pin him back against the wall. “Ditto, Love…” With the skyward swipe of my hands, I soon strip Bakugou’s upper half and begin to roll his earlobe between my teeth. “It might be the case that I detest hot foods, but…you’re the hottest meal I have the honor of eating,” I sigh into his ear as my tongue pokes into the inner folds of his ear.

Bakugou’s ruby eyes enlarge, and a scarlet wildfire sears his cheeks. “H-Holy f*ck, Shoto!” he gasps, and in an attempt to ascertain his dominance, his lips lunge for my neck, but I halt his plan with a palm to his face. “Tch! F-f*ck you!”

“Are you upset?” I purr quietly, thoroughly charmed by his flustered rage.

With a balky toss of his head, he grumbles, “I didn’t know you could pull hot sh*t like that out of your ass. f*ckin’...”

An empty, gentle laugh trickles from my throat. “You’re adorable when you’re flustered.” I plaster on a smirk as I dive for his neck and soon sink my teeth into his warm, sweet flesh. “Mm…”

I truly am terribly cruel, aren’t I? You could argue that this is purely manipulation, but I should think not.

“Tch,” Bakugou scoffs while tucking his chin towards his chest to diminish the area I have to work with around his neck. “You’re tryin’ so d-damn hard to be the top, but that sure as hell ain’t how this is gonna go… Why?” With a cunning smirk, he lifts his head and forces my head back from his neck to toss aside my shirt. “Well, Babe…” He scoops me up into his arms and peppers my scarred shoulder with kisses before shoving my back against the wall adjacent to his bed so that my legs are spread out around him. “Damn do your thighs look f*ckin’ tasty—even clothed. I’d lick every scar, if you’d let me. Tch. Anyway. I’ll bet a million bucks that I can fluster you senseless before I f*ck you so hard that everyone knows you’re mine… “

I’m so worthless…that you’ll beat me from the inside. So, beat me. Beat me again and again. Beat me until I forget it all.

Despite the remote voids of my eyes, my cheeks are mantled with boiling bursts of blush. “K-Katsuki…” Incertitude clouds my self-abasing thoughts for a moment. “What do you mean by f*cking me so hard that—”

“Your legs aren’t gonna cooperate with you, and your ass is gonna hurt like hell,” he chuckles while tearing my pants from my body with a flourish. “Look. At. Your. f*cking. Face. You’re so f*cking flustered already, Babe. You’re not even nude, Puppy.”

I brush the back of my hand over my steaming lips as my cold gaze falters to the side. I stripped myself for Endeavor out of absolute fear. My ass hurt like hell after that. Perish the thoughts. My heart is gasping fervently. I’m trembling. It feels wrong. It feels disgusting. Another man inside of me… Another man touching me and looking at me with lust in his eyes… At least red is essentially the opposite of Endeavor’s eyes. But this all feels so right. It feels so disgustingly right. I silently tilt my head at Bakugou.

“You f*ckin’ look like a curious puppy, Sho,” he cackles, now rubbing his thumb across the inside of my thigh around the hem of my boxers; I release a soft whine from the horrific memories of Endeavor forcing through my defenses coupled with the stimulating sensation of his ticklish movements tracing at my thigh. “Whine, Puppy… Don’t hold any of your whimpers back. Let me hear ‘em all.” His digits massage a few of my elevated scars in circular motions.

Squirming a bit at his touch, I stifle a yelp as his other hand teasingly strokes my clothed dick. “Ngh,” I hiss, feeling as my breaths hasten from the salacious sneer of Endeavor dinned into my memories resurfacing in my head.

I’m…so uncomfortable. Why is he holding my hand? Why is he touching me? Why is he so close? I don’t like this. I’m scared. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

A large hand stroked across the top of my right thigh.

Please don’t touch my leg. No. Stop it. I don’t like it. Stop.

“Ah! P-Please stop… Not there. Ungh!”

“C’mon, Babe, we just talked about this… Don’t hold back your pleasured sounds, you got that?” His gravelly voice kisses my ears as he gently flicks his forefinger at the tip of my dick, causing me to shiver. “Pfft, look who’s already all hard… God, much as I love being a total dick, I wanna get down to business, too.” On that note, his fingers lightly dust my skin as they dance around my boxers and scratch at my inner thighs; before long, I’m fully nude. “Hot. f*cking. Damn. Look atcha, you gorgeous-ass bitch. Can’t wait to eat your sweet little ass…”

I fix my eyes on the wall to obviate a glimpse at my horrific body. “K-Kat, ah… Ah?” My wrists are loosely secured in Bakugou’s grip as they’re crossed above my head.

He gently pinches my chin with his free hand and orients my head to face him. “Oi…” He leans his head towards me; his warm breaths smudge my nose. “Look at me, Shoto.” I hesitantly meet his soft yet stern gaze of garnet. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, Babe. I’m surprised this is happening at all—I’m over the moon about it—but I don’t want you to feel like sh*t. We both know what it’s like, but I don’t plan on taking any risks.”

I shake my head. “It’s not that,” I sigh as the impulse to scratch at my arm beleaguers my mind.

You’re most certainly exalting my image. So many scars… They itch. There’s an itch—a ceaseless itch—to generate more. Yet, I’m ashamed that you have to see these festering beds of damaged flesh. And I’m simply ashamed of this body for being what it is.

“Then, what is it? Lemme hear, you gorgeous, handsome ass that I’ll have a blast devouring whole. But, I gotta butter you up first..” A benevolent smile works its way onto his lips.

Although I want you to break me from the outside and inside, wouldn’t the process disgust you? “I’ve turned my body into an abstract piece of…ah, anything but art from how many scars I have.” My nails habitually begin to scratch at my palms.

“You’re f*cking art itself—a goddamn masterpiece. But, what of the scars? Baby, you—”

“I’m really no one special. Midoriya is so compassionate, altruistic, pretty…” He isn’t a f*cked-up nightmare that cuts his problems away with scissors, glass, ice, etcetera. “I don’t—I can’t—fathom why you want me in your life. Am I not…simply a disappointment?” My bleak eyes remain locked on his.

His baggy grip on my wrists falls away, and instead, his hand now caresses my cheek. “You got two Quirks, Sho. You got beautiful-ass heterochromia, too. I get lost staring into your cold, pretty eyes, Babe.” Through his serene lakes of scarlet can I see my own eyes reflected back at me. “Even if you’re emotionally reserved, that sure as hell doesn’t mean I love you any less. I love you more. I need you to know that you’re enough, Shoto Todoroki. You’re more than enough. You’re cold. You’re pretty. You’re special. You’re mine. ”

“You are more than enough, Uraraka.”

My heart…won’t stop pounding. Bakugou. Bakugou… I’m yours. When you give me such an epithet, I feel invigorated. I belong to you. You own me. I’m your property. Ah… My head is ringing. Bakugou. Tear me open and mark me from the inside that I’m yours. You… Only you. Bakugou. Katsuki Bakugou. Everything I see…is you. Everything I want…is you. Everything I need… is you, Katsuki Bakugou.

As Bakugou finishes undressing himself, I affirm, “I-I am yours. And…you’re mine.” Mine…

“You bet your sweet, delicious ass I’m yours, Puppy,” he snickers, now straddling my hips as our co*cks kiss. “Goddammit, you’re so f*cking gorgeous. Someone oughtta call the fire department…because just lookin’ at the sexy motherf*cker in front of me’s got my heart bursting into flames.” He pokes his tongue out from the corner of his lips as the rich hue of red mottling my cheeks deepens. “You’re so damn hot that even your cheeks are on fire, Baby.”

I don’t believe I’ve f*cked anyone before, so that shouldn’t be possible. I would certainly hope not. How appalling. The fact that I’m capable of doing so at all…

An awkward scowl tugs at my lips. “I’m on fire because you combusted my sangfroid,” I murmur, earning myself an intense, transient kiss on the lips from Bakugou. “f*ck you,” I mouth audibly with a half-assed smile on my frigid mien once we pull away.

His palm strokes over my dick as his fingers gently wrap around it in the process. “Your little buddy’s impressive,” he chortles as I squirm at the familiar yet foreign sensation. “Bigger than K…candy bars sold in mega sizes. Kidding, Babe.” He smirks at my somewhat relieved sigh. “Maybe not…”

I bury my face into his shoulder to mask my scorching countenance. “You’re c-confusing,” I manage to whisper with cracked words before circling my tongue across his shoulder and running my teeth along his flesh.

He whistles quietly and pushes my chin up, now repositioning my head to face him again. “Now, tell me, Puppy… You want it raw and rough, or prepped and pretty?” The brio of his enrapturing eyebrow flicks conjures up the sense that a devious machination is currently spinning through his head.

I avert my eyes from staring at his blindingly toned, lean body. “What…do you mean? How does this work?” I swallow thickly.

It felt so right to say he’s mine. Ah. Mm… Kitty Kat’s mine. All mine… Puppy’s all his…

He stops up a livid cackle. “Oh my God. And to think you were trying to be a dominant little puppy? Nah. See, Baby…the dick goes in the asshole—” I flush with the red of strawberries, yet my mind is racked with the fumes of triggering trepidation— “but you can make the experience slick and smooth, or you can make it dry and rough. Christ, Shoto…” He presses my face between his neck and chest as his other hand teasingly snakes the nail of his pinky finger along my hard friend.

Endeavor must have given it dry and rough. It was far from pretty. It was painful. It was so damn painful. Every thrust tore me apart. Yet…

My co*ck twitches from being both aroused and tickled by Bakugou’s touch as a soft breath squeezes through my lips. “You’re the asshole, so…” I push my tongue across his chest and flinch at Bakugou’s hand tightening around my dick. “Nn… K-Kitty Kat…Puppy wants it raw and rough.”

f*ck me until I forget. Mine… I’m yours. Bakugou, I want to feel you breaking me apart. Draw my blood and paint me with it. I want you. Even if you prove to be a filthy man like him—which, I don’t believe you will ever be—I would still want you.

“Raw and rough it is, Puppy. God, I can’t stop staring at you. Doesn’t matter if life f*cks your body up, cuz no matter what you look like, you’re still gonna be my beautiful, hot-as-hell Shoto Todoroki. Mm…” His devilish sneer burns itself into my head. “Yeah, I might be an asshole, but—” he swiftly whirls my body around and knees my lower back into the wall— “I’m looking at the best f*ckin’ asshole to exist, you pretty little f*cker.” His hands crawl along my sides before gliding down past my pelvis to massage my ass. “Puppy’s a little twink— my little twink.”

Something about the way you called me a “little f*cker” spikes my adrenaline. “A twink?” I huff as Bakugou’s fingers pinch and knead around my ass while gradually slinking towards the crevice winding down the middle. “A-Ah, ignore that. K-Katsuki…can you call me a ‘little f*cker’ again?” I roll my lower lip under my teeth, fidgeting now that my boyfriend’s fingers are swiping down the ravine of my ass.

He snickers, not providing me with any warning as one of his digits jams up the alleyway of my ass. “You like that, you little f*cker?” he whispers in a low growl while I squirm and tighten myself around his finger that invades my body.

“Ungh! Agh… Worse,” I sharply moan from the jab of searing pain being thrust into my ass as I grind my forehead against the wall. “Hgh. Ngh.” He further teases me by abating the scalding pain inside of me by removing his finger.

Now, however, the moment of remission fades as his finger twists back inside of me, forcing a whine from my throat. “Holy mother of sh*t, you’re so f*cking tight, Puppy… Loosen up, you sh*tty little f*cker. Let Kitty Kat inside…unless you’re not comfortable with that.”

f*ck. f*cking hell. Hearing him call me those awful names feels so good. I feel so high. His finger up my ass reminds me of Endeavor, but the memories are easily outweighed by the fact that Bakugou’s using me as he wishes.

With a breathy grunt, I attempt to still myself and regain my composure to relax my taut muscles, but my progress is instantaneously eroded once Bakugou chuckles, “You want me to call you dirty sh*t, don’tcha? You’re disgusting, Babe.” I tightly curl around the finger wiggling inside of me. “Mm, I was right, huh? Who’s a sick little bitch?”

I feel as though I’m going insane. My stolid persona is unraveled merely by his touch. Everything I thought I understood is trampled beneath my feet. He’s telling me the truth. I am disgusting. I am a sick little bitch. I crave it. I want it. I want it so f*cking bad. I’m addicted. Bakugou, please continue. I’m obsessed.

Panting, I gasp, “M-Me. Puppy’s a disgusting, sick little bitch.” My thighs press together, and once I realize I’m gently rubbing them against each other, I hang my head in dismay. “Ahh!” I cry as Bakugou wriggles another finger up my ass. “K-K…Ka-at!” With a groan, I silence myself by clamping my jaws down on my left wrist, but the enthralling bullet of pain that perforates my mind causes a gasp to escape my throat.

“Holy f*ck, you sick son of a bitch,” he growls with mirth lacing his words. “Calm the f*ck down, you dirty little f*cker. What other nasty kinks you got, you filthy rat?” His tongue caresses my ass as his teeth sink into my flesh.

I can imagine that, in comparison to now, I’d be immensely calm if I never flung open the gate to the addicting degradation of my mind. Bakugou… The words I want to hear from you the most would be that you hate me, that I’m worthless and selfish, and that I would be better off dead. The piquancy of hearing you tell me that I’m worthless and better off dead would surely break me. As it is, I’m quite literally itching for more. But…it feels so f*cking good when I can finally hear you tell me the truth with a ravishing smirk on your face.

Gritting my teeth as I stay my tongue to prevent any regretful impulses from fleeing from my mind, I offer him my deep, quivering breaths. Grinding my teeth against my wrist as cool, dull arrows of pain strike through my limb, the tart, almost intoxicating taste of iron pervades my tastebuds. I lap up the thin streams of blood drizzling across my wrist while huffing and faintly grunting at the blissfully abominable feeling of Bakugou scissoring the canal in which I allowed him ingress.

He harshly wiggles his knee against my spine. “You’ve gone all quiet, Puppy,” he mockingly chaffs as his breaths continue to heat my skin. “Tch. That’s no f*ckin’ good. Puppy…who’s a sh-sh*t little failure?” He stumbles over his words as a pernicious poison of guilt seizes them.

Goddammit, I can’t control myself… I immediately expel a guttural, pleading whine while once again somewhat relaxing myself. It hurts. The truth hurts, but I can’t get enough of it. My own boyfriend is calling me disgusting, filthy, sh*tty… I’m a f*cking failure, and he knows it. I’m brimming with joy.

“Me,” I groan, releasing a yelp as Bakugou’s fingers curl into my ass. “P-Puppy’s a sh*t little f-failure,” I shakily sigh in ecstasy. “Puppy’s completely l-lost his composure to his master. It feels goo—”

Bakugou roughly thrusts his fingers up my ass, whispering, “M-Master, huh? Kitty likes that… But, Babe, you’re not really a sh*t failure, ‘kay? Mm. You got that, you kinky disgrace?” His nails scrape at the inside of me, causing my muscles to sporadically contract and flare up in spiraling spasms. “f*cking hell, Shoto. This is the poor excuse for a top that wanted to be Kitty Kat’s dom? Pathetic” He sharply jams his knee against my tailbone. “But…you’re my pathetic little loser, and I f*cking love you, so don’t take any of the sh*t I say to heart.” He cackles at the hefty moans creeping from my lips, and likely how I’ve been helplessly flailing in his grasp.

Stab me with the whetted, unvarnished truth until I’m supplicating for my end to be written. Bakugou, I want to die, and you know that. But what you don’t know…is how exceedingly obsessive I am over the idea of you happily beating me to death. I want that. I want it so f*cking much. For my savior—yet also the hero that was unknowingly killing me from the inside—to beat the sh*t out of me, I’ll do anything at all. As long as it’s you, Kitty Kat. You’re mine. Mine… All mine. I’ll make you mine. I want to mark you as mine and only mine. Aha… Bakugou, I feel like I’m sitting atop the railing for the bridge overlooking pure, unadulterated insanity. I seldom feel anything anymore, but when I’m with you, you explode that door. It’s like I feel everything when I’m with you. You really are doing a phenomenal job of insidiously causing my mind to deteriorate. I like that. I love that. I need that. I—

A hand firmly squeezes and yanks on my co*ck in unison with a forceful, jagged thrust of fingers shooting down into my ass, and I find myself choking back a visceral, rattling growl of a groan as a scorching release of pressure that had been culminating inside of me ejects itself from the tip of my dick in a steaming, sticky stream of a milky fluid. Unfamiliar with the explosion impacting the southern regions of my body, I grunt and sigh at the lack of tension. I also find myself rubbing my thighs together again to feel the tingly, relieving jabs of friction between my legs and around my crotch.

Bakugou uproariously snickers, “I f*cking got you to f*cking cum already, Shoto? Coulda f*ckin’ told me it was comin’. Christ! All I did was shove my fingers up your tight little asshole, fondle with your rock-hard dick, and toy with your nasty kink like the sh*tty toy you are.” He loosens his grip on the inside of me a bit. “Well, I don’t mean—”

I’m just a sh*tty toy. Use me, then. Use me and abuse me. Break me. Exploit me until nothing I have remains. Do it.

With my cheeks slathered by a prominent shade of scarlet, I slovenly interject, “I don’t know wh-what happened, but I-I don’t want any apologies. Don’t…back down, Love.” Gasping rapidly, I turn my head to glance at him, but the sight of his fiery cheeks draws my attention back to the wall. “Ngh. Puppy’s master…makes Puppy feel good. As if…Puppy will break.” Despite my vehement gulps of air, my remarks remain saturnine and my expression aloof.

He lowers his brows a bit while holding his smirk up as he clutches my cheek and turns my head to stare at his muscular, thin build. “You’re whining like a puppy, and it’s so f*cking cute. But, listen here, Sho… Whatever dirty names I call you, I don’t mean them. Not one goddamn bit. Now, oi. Stay those wretched little peepers of yours on your master’s, Puppy.” Wandering through the imperial rings of vermillion that are Bakugou’s eyes, I flinch at the feeling of his tepid, sticky fingers being stroked across my lips. “Lick off your own putrid cum, Baby…”

Ah? “What?” I question while slowly beginning to force my stimulated state of euphoria to simmer.

He withdraws his hand from my lips and visibly curls his tongue around his forefinger. “Babe, oh my God… Your cum is what flew the f*ck out of your dick. This. You came right into my hand, you weak little sh*t.” He tips his head back to lick up his index finger slathered with what almost reminds me of melted marshmallows.

f*ck… The way he calls me these deplorable names is a bullet to my glass heart. My heart is irate. My breaths fluctuate between exponentially hastening and immediately freezing up. I feel all that I’m feeling. I feel high. I feel dizzy. I feel numb. My head is splitting. My fingers are tingling. I want it. I want him. I want to be his.

“Ah? I…c-came? Into your hand?” I tilt my head at him as his fingers wedge between my lips and gently scratch at my tongue. “Mm?”

“You innocent motherf*cker… Now, lick the goddamn cum away, you ugly, useless sh*t stain. Unless you wanna have a good little taste of pain.”

I may as well be f*cking addicted to pain. Pain, and him. Ah… Ugly. Useless. sh*t. A stain. It burns, Bakugou. My heart burns. It feels like I’m suspended upside-down in the air.

Again do my thighs unite and cuddle as I sharply inhale. “Damn,” I hiss through my creaking teeth. “Kitty…make it hurt. Make it…unbearable.” Break me.

His devious sneer reveals a fraction of the whites of his teeth. “You f*cking masoch*st,” he innocuously jeers. “f*ck is it hotter than hell itself when you get so damn desperate for something. I wanna see you struggle, Babe. I wanna see what the f*ck-up has to offer. I wanna—” I gasp in a shrill whine as his forefinger mercilessly penetrates my ass— “make you scream like the sick f*cker you are.”

“Grgh,” I huff as Bakugou further twists my neck and clamps his rigid teeth onto my flesh. “K-Kitty…” I grimace at the flowers and petals crawling through my chest.

“Mm?” He snaps his jaws at my clavicle while coiling his teeth around the concave protrusion and licking across it.

The grinding tug of his teeth gnashing against each other and rolling across my skin threatens to insidiously lull my hapless mind into a cold stupor. “It’s…hard to breathe,” I utter in a strained whisper.

His expression is lightly scrubbed by dubiety and perturbation. “C’mere. I have an idea, Babe.” He shovels my body into his dependable grasp while keeping his finger in my ass. “God, you’re so dirty that ya might as well be my damn doormat. Look at your dumb face. Oi. Hold on… Sho, your wrist—what the hell happened? Tch. You bit them open, huh?” As he carries me into the shower in his bathroom, he smirks vaguely. “Save the biting for Kitty, Puppy. Leave your wrists alone. They don’t…need more scars, Shoto. Hey… When’s the last time you cut, Babe?” He closes the thin glass door to the shower and retracts his finger from scratching inside of me as he sets me down.

Does it matter anymore? I open my mouth to reply, but rather than words spilling from my parted lips, a golden barrage of petals and flowers erupt from my mouth. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter how many times I cut myself up as long as I’m alive, right? My heart, like a dolphin leaping up from the water and plunging back into the azure profound, batters against my chest and ebbs away into a faded hum as my vision is splattered with white.

Does it matter anymore? Does it matter anymore? Once I’ve retched up the fell flowers blooming from within my chest, Bakugou turns on the faucet and soon initiates the deluge of water that licks our skin. I truly am disgusting, and I deserve to be trampled by filth. Your words…hurt so much, yet I feel such satiating pleasure from them, and so they don’t hurt at all. I glance up at Bakugou with a grim, neutral expression while he kneels down against the tiled floor and encircles my waist with his arms from my backside. I am utterly revolted by the very idea that I’m engaging in this kind of activity we’ve been indulging in, but…as long as you want it, it’s fine. You. Bakugou. Katsuki Bakugou. My Katsuki Bakugou.

“Better?” he inquires, now reaching out a hand from my waist to pluck one of the chrysanthemum flowers I hacked up from the ground.

I nod and squirm a bit in his grasp as the dour, insurmountable memory of Endeavor forcing himself inside of me bites my thoughts. “Yeah. Sorry… Ah. To answer your question, it was last week.” Why the f*ck did I lie when it’s painstakingly axiomatic that I recently mutilated myself?

With hair that now droops and dangles above his ears, Bakugou growls, “You f*cking liar.” Rather than being pierced with a bullet of self-culpability as I anticipated from foreseeing Bakugou’s reaction prior to his expression of it, I find that his vehement statement fails to discountenance me. “You dirty, sick little liar, Shoto. Can’t we compromise—even just a bit? Wish you didn’t have to feel like you have to slit your goddamn wrists to cope with it all. We gotta figure somethin’ out for you. That’s an order from your master, Puppy.” He licks the bridge of my nose as a stream of water slinks down it.

“Don’t you…hate me for how much of my sh*t you have to put up with?” I candidly sigh while a river of a hefty weightlessness envelops my being; the familiar feeling of my jaded emotions being mired down and washed away swims through my veins as I audaciously lift Bakugou’s hand clasping the flower; I shake the plant free before proceeding to suck on his bloodied fingers.

His chin shakes against the back of my head. “Nope. Never gonna hate you,” he murmurs as his free hand gently rubs the tip of my co*ck with his fingernail. “Don’t dodge the subject, Sho.” His thumb and forefinger lightly yet perfervidly massage the head of my dick.

My thighs click together at the sensation Bakugou jams against my “impressive little buddy,” but my mien remains astringent. “I don’t see a point,” I brazenly admit, cognizant of being noncommittal while I pull Bakugou’s fingers to my lips. “Darling, regardless of how many reasons you lay out for me, I won’t understand. Draw the lines and speak with actions and words, but you can’t change my mind.” I rest my head against his shoulder and turn it to bite at his fingers and neck.

Aren’t you exhausted of hearing me sound like such a pitiable, selfish piece of sh*t? I ask myself in revile while leaning my weight against Bakugou. I’ve betrayed you and lied to you so many goddamn times. I know what I’m doing is hurting you. You forced me to slash into your wrist to prove your point. Even so…without so much as a second thought, I’ll bring the blades to my skin while I continue to be unabashed.

I grunt upon the fingers fondling my dick pinching down onto my length from the tip onwards as Bakugou hisses, “It ain’t impossible. If anyone’s gonna change your mind, it’s sure as hell gonna be me, you asshole.” He begins squeezing my erect co*ck, and as he does so, I find myself grinding my thighs against his hand. “You f*cking crack me up…” I’m breaking you? “But I don’t care if you don’t see a point. I want you to be happy. I want you to feel loved, special, strong, pretty—you name it. I f*cking love you, you sick swine. You’re my sick swine.”

If you want to make me happy…break me with those divine hands of yours. I’d love it if you strangled me, Bakugou. Force me into a state of feeling death encroach on my body while the pain becomes all that I can recognize in a world smothered by white. Then, end it. Such a splendid ending that would be.

“I love it when you degrade me,” I chuckle in a desiccated sigh as Bakugou lays me supine against the floor and takes my full length into his mouth. “You’re warm. Your tongue is t-ticklish, Kitty.” While staring into his smirking eyes of fire as the water from the showerhead splashes down on the two of us, he releases my co*ck for a moment to slam my back up against the wall and force my ascension by clasping my throat and sliding my body up along the wall until my feet touch the floor. “Nn,” I moan once his grip on my neck falters and he crouches down to lick the tip of my dick. “A-Ah…”

So serendipitous…yet much too ephemeral of a moment to have truly been satisfactory. How tantalizing. Now…I crave it. I’m selfish, indeed. Despite that, I’m loved by Katsuki Bakugou. Why and how… I’ll never comprehend.

With his hands pressed against my hips, Bakugou gently nibbles at my length from the tip up. “Tch. All right, you worthless, sick f*ck…you wanna bet I can get you to hit your climax again in under a minute?” He rubs my dick between his front teeth before gradually shifting to his back teeth.

Hearing him call me “worthless” is one of the most piquant tunes I have ever heard. “Hit my climax?” A sharp jab of addictive pain penetrates my lower half as Bakugou’s grinding of my hard friend becomes rough and hasty. “Nn!” Reacting to the pleasuring pain, I wrap my fingers around my left wrist to augment the twinges rattling my body. “Ah!”

How long was I searching for something to prove to myself that I don’t have to be worthless? I’d questioned while eating dinner with Bakugou, Midoriya, Eri, and Aizawa. I don’t know, but I deceived myself with such a puerile thought for much too long. I’d tell myself I was more than they thought I was. I’d scrape up every reason I could in a futile endeavor to ascertain my worth. Then, I asked myself if I was really worth anything, and if I was anything more than just a creation constructed from my own father’s lust for power. Then, I told myself I was worthless, and I still do. Now…it’s all so normal that it’s pitiable to those around me. I don’t want pi—

“Oi.”

“Ah… Sorry.”

“Todo-chan?”

“I drifted away with my thoughts.”

“Oh my f*cking God,” Bakugou chortles while tracing his hands along the minor curves of my sides. “Baby, that’s also when your dick explodes like it did before. Hey. I dare you to repeat what I said before this. All of it.” His guile shimmers in his radiant eyes.

Of course you would ask me when my equilibrium is being thrown off course. “Oh my f*cking God. B-Baby, that’s—”

“Nah,” he teases me before sucking on my dick for a few moments. “Can’t stutter, Babe.”

f*ck you. “O-Oh,” I begin, but I bite my tongue in mortification at my immediate, anathematizing stutter.

Bakugou raises his brows with mirth. “Christ, Shoto, it’s all right. C’mon, don’t be such a f*cking disappointment.” He kisses my thighs, leaving smears of his saliva across them.

Sorry. “I’m not…trying to be,” I huff as another frenzy of boiling pressure sizzles within me. “Gh. K-Kat, I thought you…wanted to get down to business.” My nails bite into my wrist in place of my teeth as my sensibility flutters away like a piece of paper in the wind.

“Also nice to see you struggle to stay composed, you nasty little slu*t. ” With that, his mouth engulfs my co*ck, and as I hiss out a whimpering groan of delight, I narrowly evade what feels to be my second release. “Mm. Ah. Mm.”

f*ck. I’m f*cking disgusting. How the hell does he love me? Even my thoughts…are reminiscent of him.

“Any…other requests for Puppy?” I groan while dragging my teeth across his neck from bending down my head to his level.

His sneer of ardor widens as he frees my bulging friend from his mouth. “f*ck yeah. You don’t seem to want to be teased so f*ckin’ much, so…” He flicks my head back and stands up to his feet while ruffling my hair as though I truly am his dirty puppy. “...beg your master to f*ck you, you filthy, worthless slu*t.” The husky growl of his voice is irresistible as he sings for me his seemingly splenetic song.

Dammit, he may as well have a collar around my neck and a brand on my thigh. Yank me, then. Drag me by your deliciously coruscating words.

Dropping down to my knees in front of Bakugou’s feet, I grasp his calves as I monotonously pant, “f*ck your worthless, filthy slu*t, K-Kitty. Puppy begs you…” How the f*ck do I “beg” you to f*ck me? “Puppy needs you. Puppy wants you. Master’s disgusting disgrace begs to be f*cked by his explosiveness.” With a blank, burning stare, I meet his eyes.

“You suck at begging,” he jeers while slicking back his caramel hair from it being wetted down. “You need emotion to beg for something. Make it sound like you’re desperate. While you’re at it…play with yourself, you f*cking mistake. Do something that I was doing to yourself.”

I force tears to gush from my eyes and weld together with the warm streams of water slithering down my face as I start to bite and lick at my shoulder. My heart echoes through my mind like a drop of water firing rippling rings into what was once a still body of water. Even my breaths quicken and become raspy while my nails tear through the scars littering my wrist.

I feel like a filthy animal, but it feels so good to hear you spit the truth in my face without any repercussions on either end. “P-Please… Master, please f*ck your d-dirty dog,” I utter in a forced whine as my duplicitous tears roll down my cheeks. “Please. The useless mistake begs you,” I add, but my insipid words remain achromatic.

I abhor begging, I cogitate as Bakugou rolls his somewhat amused eyes. The only thing I’d like to beg for…is for you to bring my life to an end, Bakugou.

“N-No more,” I’d gasped during one of my first training sessions with Endeavor. “It hurts…”

“We’ve only just started, Shoto. This is the only way for you to surpass me. Get up.”

“I can’t…” I was pulled up off the floor by my wrist, but I immediately collapsed back down to the floor. “Please, no more. I can’t take any more. Dad, it hur—”

“Do you want to be punished for whining and pretending?”

I’m…not pretending, Dad. “N-No. But I can’t! I can’t move! I-It hurts! Ah…” As my cheek was struck, I found myself beginning to weep.

“Your emotions are only detriments to your performance. You need to learn how to control and suppress them to get the job done. Now, stand, Shoto—don’t disgrace the Todoroki name.”

He sighs. “You’re useless, know that?” His stern, cool voice licks my ears. “Can’t even f*cking beg if its life depended on it. Not that you’d try to live. You’re weak and suicidal. It gets old. Just f*cking get over yourself.”

I couldn’t agree more, but what you’re saying is terribly paradoxical. “Sorry I’m not good enough,” I murmur while listening to the hisses and taps of the water smacking the floor.

His brows lower for a brief moment. “C-Course you’re…never gonna be good enough,” he replies, initially fast and soft, but by the end of his veridical statement, his words are slow and sharp. “You’re a cutter, and that just makes you a f*cking burden to everyone else. Only an idiot would slit his wrists.” He refuses to look into my eyes as he spins my body to press my chest against the wall.

I’m that appalling of a person to you? “I know it does, and I know I am.” I lower my head a bit as I recollect my incident with the scissors after Fuyumi’s death. “Hence why I’m not good enough.” He jams two fingers into my ass. “Ah…”

WHY DID I GET TO f*ckING LIVE?!

Numb. I continuously plunged a pair of scissors through my arm to generate a minefield of puncture wounds, but the scorching pain felt so numb. Even though my fulminating thoughts were conjured up with such irate verve, it was as though I was attempting to scream to assure myself that I still could. It all felt so numb.

“Or…was it all just for attention?” His fingers retreat before wriggling back inside of me as I whine in pain. “Just so you could get someone to love your worthless self… You’re just good at being a lowly thing of deception.” As I groan, he yanks his fingers from me and instead inserts his wet, slick dick into the gap in my ass.

“Stop,” I impetuously whine from the familiar feeling provoking my memories of Endeavor being inside of me. “Don’t say what isn’t true,” I add in an attempt to drown out the fact that I asked Bakugou to pull out.

It hurts. Endeavor. Hands. Eyes. Stripped. No. Touching. Stop. Him inside of me. Please stop… Again. It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts—

My body trembles against the wall as Bakugou mercilessly slams into me like a sword being thrust through a paper barrier. “f*cking sociopath,” he spits, yet no venom drips from his frigid words.

Unable to fully stifle my moans while Bakugou jams his dick into my ass in a wavering staccato, I groan, “I’m not.” My breath is seized transiently once Bakugou strikes a region within me that pricks my veins with pleasure. “Nn! Ngh… He…was right.” Bakugou starts to pump my co*ck with his free hand as his own tears apart my insides with a wet, rough grinding of flesh on flesh. “The only reason— ah —someone would f*ck…trash as worthless as—oogh—me…would be to b-beat me from the inside.”

Tearing. Burning. Grinding. Sharp. So fast. It wouldn’t end. My own father…f*cking me, raping me, stealing my virginity… I can’t forget. Why can’t I forget? Make me forget…

He smacks my source of pleasure dwelling inside of me again, and with a breathless moan, I release into his hand again. “God, you’re disgusting. f*cking w-warn me, jackass,” he huffs, evidently beginning to arouse himself by hearing my helpless, stifled cries of agonizing pleasure. “Y’know, even though we’re in the damn sh-shower, it’ll never wash away the filth that you are. You’re dirty beyond…redemption. Nn…”

Pressing myself up against the wall to keep myself from faltering as my body jerks against it from Bakugou thrusting in and out of me, I grit my teeth. “Hrgh… Ah! F-f*ck… f*ck! Ngh!” Bakugou repeatedly and hastily slaps the pleasuring region in my body I currently have no name for, and in doing so, he causes my knees to crumble.

Endeavor…f*cking me again. What? This… My memories want to convince me that reality is the nightmare and the nightmare is reality. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s Katsuki… It’s okay.

“S-So weak and thin that you…can’t even stay s-standing,” he snickers while wiping his hand that I released into against my slick inner thigh. “Gh. Christ, you’re tight again. Tch. L-Look at the way you’re grinding against…the wall and me. Disgusting. ”

I haven’t deteriorated to that extent…yet. “Hah… Ungh!” My eyes peel open as I start to desperately rake my nails against my arm from the livid throbs of unembellished exuberance thrashing through my body. “L-Love…” Blood dilutes with water while I scrape my arms and wrists against the wall.

My senses are torpid, yet they rage on in endless loops and cycles, I think as I crumple down to the wet floor with a strangled whine. I hate this. I love this. Being f*cked like this… I’d rather have you continue to call me worthless. Bakugou, I want you to break me.

“B-Baby, I’m gonna cum at any moment,” he pants while squishing the flesh of my left inner thigh that’s been painted in various bodily fluids.

Knowing that this is pleasuring at all…makes me want to bash my head against the wall. I nod at him while expelling a growl of tormented, dissatisfying glee. My vision is blurring into white. Wriggling around as my head pounds with scorching twinges of pain, I spread myself out across the floor of the shower with my nose pointed down.

Bakugou slams into me thrice more before hitting his climax and injecting my ass with a hot shot of fluid with a bestial, visceral moan. “H-Hot f*cking damn,” he gasps, pulling out from me and leaning himself back against the wall to catch his breath. “Goddamn, Puppy… That was phenomenal. Hammering your prostate was f*cking gold. But…hey. I’m so f*cking sorry… Went too f-far with what I said, didn’t I? I didn’t mean any of it, Shoto. I didn’t mean one damn bit of it.” Crawling towards my right side beneath the threads of water swishing through the air, he pulls me up into his chest and lap. “Babe, you’re… Don’t do this to yourself, Sho. We’ll hafta get that wrapped up when we’re done.” He holds me fast while filling his palm full of soap and massaging my shoulders with it.

As the water raining down from above smudges with the soap and rubs together a barrage of bubbles, I tilt my head up to lick Bakugou’s chin. “I’d say…you didn’t go far enough, Love,” I sigh while composing myself from my high. “There’s still something I wanted to hear you say. Of course, I knew full well you wouldn’t say it, but…” Staring at the glass door of the shower, I blink a few times as I await Bakugou’s response.

Didn’t you find it peculiar how I never made any comments about when you hugged my waist? Unless you did so with an ulterior motive… I can’t imagine that you would suddenly forget about something I was so adamant about.

His hands snake around my chest as he continues to lather me up with slick, slippery suds. “I don’t love you and never loved you?” His dithering words tremble while I shake my head. “I hate you?”

“That was one I did want to hear,” I murmur in a soft hum. “Bakugou… I wanted to hear you say that for a while, but there’s something else I crave. It’s something…I tell myself every day. Broad, yes, but I know that you know me incredibly well.” Well, to some extent.

As he scrubs at my sides, he uses only one hand to wind around my waist. “You…deserve to feel like sh*t?” I shake my head while his fingers curl around my ass. “You don’t deserve to be…” He pauses, audibly gulping. “Babe, I’m not gonna say that. You deserve to be alive, Shoto. And I won’t f*cking stop trying to get that through your thick skull until you understand. I love you so f*cking much, Baby…” His hands gently fondle my dick.

I close my eyes and kiss over the hickeys I planted on his neck. “I know it’s selfish, but I wish you didn’t. I’m not worth your love. Darling…shouldn’t I want to live by now? Shouldn’t I be f*cking happy? After all you’ve done… After all this time… After all we’ve been through… Katsuki, I want to die. I still want to die so f*cking much.” I kiss along his jawline for a moment. “Before, I couldn’t comprehend why I felt that way. I was exhausted. I was sick of asking myself why I continued to live while I sobbed. I was surfeited with tearing myself apart with blades and glass just to feel something nice…and to forget about it all for even a fleeting moment while my mind was pumped full of adrenaline. It was lonely. Touya left. My mom left. Fuyumi left. Natsuo left. I had to stay…because my f*cking Quirk demarcated me from them. Good creation. Good little masterpiece. Good little machine made to rectify someone else’s errors derived from jealousy, envy, selfishness…

“Endeavor acted much more human before his addiction to alcohol drowned his senses. His training was hell to endure, but I still survived each one. I figured…that that was normal for families. I figured I must have had it easy compared to others. So, when Endeavor developed abusive behaviors when he was intoxicated, I thought that was normal. I thought that that was what alcohol did. Happiness for hostility. I thought it was normal to be beaten both physically and mentally. To be reminded that I’m worthless time and time again. That I will never be enough. That I’m not a person, but a disposable object that can be stitched back together as many times as it breaks and falls apart. That it doesn’t matter how badly I’ve been broken or how many times I’ve been broken…because I can be put back together again for the purpose of meeting the same failures all over again and never truly learning anything new—simply aggravating the festering wounds.”

While Bakugou’s fingers weave through my drooping locks of red and white that liken my hair to that of a candy cane, I start to lightly chew at his clavicle between my words. “There were many times when he threatened me if I was to eat,” I continue. “Even though I knew he would forget the next day, I was terrified nonetheless. Now, as it is, sometimes I just can’t eat because it reminds me much too strongly of when he… You get the point. That is what transpired during the beach trip. Nonetheless, I was often called ‘Candy Stick’ in middle school. I tried my damn hardest to earn straight A’s on my report card, but I always fell short. An A-minus or two was what it usually ended up being. My mother told me it was okay, but Endeavor was far from accepting of what he saw as an absolute failure. My link to Endeavor automatically demanded that those who looked at me would see me as receiving perfect grades, but I could never focus in class. I was physically exhausted, and as the day progressed, my thoughts mentally drained me. I started to dedicate my lunch break to cutting just to get through the day. I’d cut, sob, cut again, and then bandage the wounds, but I could never bandage the wound of wishing to disappear.”

Bakugou wipes his eyes swollen with tears with his arm. “K-Keep goin’, but I’m gonna rinse your hair now, all right?” As I nod, he kisses both of my cheeks.

I close my eyes and look down as the warmth of Bakugou’s body being hugged against mine evanesces, but it soon returns as the showerhead wavers immediately above my head. “Last year…I slit my wrists in an attempt at suicide. I was impressed by just how deeply I’d cut. I’ll spare you the details of what it looked like and what I did, but I felt sick when I looked at the damage.” As if snipping through paper, I could hear my flesh being chopped open as the blades met from above my skin and underneath it to slice through. “But…you texted me. I suddenly felt so guilty. I had to stop, and that I did. That’s why I’m still here. You. You, Bakugou. You, Katsuki Bakugou. You.” I inhale deeply as he finishes rinsing my hair and body. “You want me to be okay. You want me to discard my unhealthy, self-destructive habits. You want me to live, and you want me to want to live. You want me to be happy. Despite that, I’ve only gotten worse, Bakugou. Why is it so f*cking hard to live? To want to live? To not want to die? Why do I never know the answers to the questions I’m desperate to resolve? Why do I have to be alive? Why can’t I… I’m sorry.” I look up at him again and lock our lips.

Our tender lips smoosh together as our hands intertwine in a wet web of saccharine love. A profound, perfervid warmth spills through my being as ardent affection permeates the air. The tangy yet sweet emanation of shampoo and conditioner tickles my nose through our syrupy lake of saliva-coated doting that lacks the exchange of any words to employ our rich messages. Honey drizzles across my heart as our tongues fly together and we unconsciously initiate a battle for fragile dominance. Fluttering like the thin wings of a butterfly twirling through milky sunlight, my heart skips around as I gently pin Bakugou to the floor; the ghost of a smirk pulls at my lips while I straddle his broad chest. Blazing, ruby grandeur arrests my eyes with shackles of vanilla-glazed bliss.

I hate all of this affection…so why am I suddenly searching for it? I want more of it. As long as it’s him. Use me however you want. I’ll be obedient. I’ll do as you say. Despite that, affection is rotten and atrabilious. Despite that, I feel as though I would do anything to fill myself with more. Him. Only him. Bakugou. Everything I need… Even so, I’m still selfish. So, so incredibly selfish…

Our tepid saliva unites us as one as we simultaneously split our lips apart. With a frigid, feigned smile of shaking vacillation, I stare down at Bakugou and spread out my jaws along his throat.

“Sho, Baby…” he pants as his throat gently vibrates in my grasp. “You don’t know what the f-f*ck you’re doing, do you?” I tug his flesh left and right as I shake my head and gradually tighten my grip. “Babe, give it up.”

I silently shake my head again, dubious of his persistence. “Mm…”

He releases a grunt. “You a-asshole… But, Shoto, I’m not just gonna ignore what you said. I do want you to get better. I f-f*cking hate that you always have to hurt and feel like…you’d be better off dead. I never want my time with you to come to an end, Sho. But I don’t want you to keep doing this kind of stuff to yourself. Sho—”

As I pull back from him and sit at his side, I whisper, “I know. Love, I know what you want. I f*cking understand that I’m loved, appreciated, valued…” I fill the palm of my left hand with soap and wince at the burn of the soap against my wounds as I slide my hands across Bakugou’s chest. “But I don’t want anyone to feel that way about me. I don’t.” I slink into silence for a moment. “Do you want to know what would make me truly happy?”

He nods, purring as I continue washing him. “f*ck yeah. Whatever the hell it is, I-I wanna give that to you, Sho.” He kisses my earlobe. “But we can’t help the way we feel about you, Shoto.”

“K-Katsuki, it might seem…unorthodox. Are you certain you want to know? My dream…is different from what you might expect.”

“Lemme hear it, Babe. Tell me anything. Oi… Speaking of which, you kept your promise to me.” He nibbles at my earlobe, and in response to this, I gently bite his back.

“Katsuki, if you want to make me happy, then I want you to hate me. I want you to torture me both physically and mentally. All I want…is for the one who gave me a sliver of hope for a better tomorrow to take my life. The thought makes me feel so strange—in a good way. Bakugou, I want to see the one who gave me a reason to keep fighting break me apart. Let my source of hope be what writes my ending in so brutal a fashion that nothing remains. That’s how f*cking selfish I am. I want you—”

He claws his hands around my neck and thrusts my back against the wall. “Shoto! Get a f*cking grip!” he inveighs sharply. “I know I said I wanted to give it to you, but you’re right—I really wasn’t expecting this! Figured it might involve pain or some sh*t, but I didn’t think you’d ask me to f*cking murder you. Not even just murder—that’s putting it lightly—but torture!”

“Katsuki…please,” I selfishly supplicate with hoarse words scraping against my throat.

“Shut…up. I’m not hurting you. That’s…such a f*cking horrible, f*cked up, depressing thing to want. You’re telling me you want to die, and you want me to be the one to break you?” He grimaces as my mind is infected with a sick form of pleasure again. “You want to be tortured until… Shoto, what the f*ck?”

This is the truth. I seldom say the truth. The truth hurts you. Ah… f*ck. It feels good. Bakugou, you can’t change my mind, and you can’t change the truth. It feels so good. Not being able to breathe properly because of the one that loves me the most feels so damn good. Show me how worthless I truly am. So worthless….that the one who kept my head above the water would be the one to drown me.

In a strained gasp, I reply, “Love, it would make me genuinely happy if you beat me with a smirk. I—”

“Don’t say sh*t like that! I’m not…gonna hurt you! Then why the hell am I practically choking you? So you can’t say anything back to me if I don’t want you to.” An exasperated sigh greets my ears as I savor the taste of Bakugou’s crushing grip on my neck. “Babe, that’s just f*cked up… Do you f*cking hear just what you’re saying? Baby, I couldn’t hate you if being number one at everything depended on it. You’ve already been beaten to hell and back both physically and mentally, but if you wanna tell me that that’s not enough… That you deserve it… That you turned the pain into what you love… God, my chest aches. Why? Because I’m f*cking sad. I’m hurt. I’m worried. I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m confused.” His visceral lour fades as he hangs his head. “I know you don’t want me to feel like that. I f*cking get it… Shoto, I can’t change the fact that we’re only humans here. That’s all we are. Hate yourself or love yourself, but you’re a f*cking human, Shoto Todoroki.

“I can’t tell you why the hell you’re here or who the hell you are, but I can tell you that you’re a human. Your mind blows everything out of proportion, and your mind has had enough—it wants to f*cking die. But your body won’t stop fighting. Do as your mind wants and stab scissors into your wrists all you want, but your body’s still gonna fight to survive. You can endure so damn much…but there are limits to it. Shoto, as it is, you’re withering away by the day. You told me yourself…that you’ve only gotten worse. The Hanahaki Disease is the thing to blame for a sh*t ton of it, though. Babe, this disease is going to f*cking kill you if you don’t get that goddamn surgery. Your body’s already being broken by the disease, Shoto. Haven’t you been through enough? The flowers are impeding your ability to breathe to the point where you can’t f*cking breathe. You’ve been having more and more coughing fits in a single day than before. You’re throwing up flowers, too. Haven’t these petals left enough scars for you?”

Struggling to mitigate the pain from Bakugou’s vehement jabs of unadulterated, authentic love, I furrow my brows as I shake my head with enervated, minute sways. “Nn,” is all I manage to choke out of my voice.

Bakugou wrenches his jaw open as he seethingly spits, “Let’s make a f*cking deal, Shoto.” Despite the heat of his pernicious vociferation of words, his eyes are glazed with a glassy film. “Goddammit… I hate this, Shoto. It’s not right. But…if you talk to the infirmary grandma today and schedule the surgery for sometime tomorrow, I’ll… I’ll give you some of what you want from me. Some. ” My eyes widen ever so slightly at the proposal. “But I refuse to kill you. Baby, I know you want to just end it all. I know you must be f*cking sick of your emotions stabbing you in the back and draining everything out of you. I know you hate your own damn guts so much that you wanna be torn apart both inside and outside. Shoto, doesn’t it hurt when your pain makes us feel pain? We’re all so f*cking worried about you. Does that…not m-mean a single thing to you?” His voice splinters by his final sentence.

I’ve gotten used to it, Bakugou—that’s just how selfish I am. Disregarding my thoughts and ripping them asunder, I nod as I open my mouth to speak. This works out wonderfully. Katsuki, all I need is you. All I could ever want is you. You… You own me. I own you. You’re mine. I’m yours. The rest…don’t matter. Sorry, but I’m no longer sorry.

The hands which bind my neck loosen enough to allow my voice to spill from my throat in thin, divergent streams. “It does,” I squeak while growing more fond of the feeling of being choked. “And…I agree to your proposal.” How haplessly serendipitous, or, inversely, how serendipitously hapless—either is correct. “That’s all I want…”

Chapter 14: Self-Destruction

Chapter Text

Threatening to completely sever my ability to breathe, Bakugou's hands cause my neck to shiver and flinch sporadically. "What does it feel like to have so many people worry about you, then? Mm. Too bad Puppy can't answer..." A smirk emerges from his lips through the hiss of the water spanking the floor and the steam pervading the air. "Does the dirty dog like this sh*t treatment?"

An ugly, twisted smile curves my lips upwards from perceiving a form of joy being exhibited from Bakugou by forcing upon me my own blissful suffering. "Mm," I moan, unable to spit out any words.

"F-f*cking hell, Babe... Look at that nasty smile. You disgusting, pain-loving slu*t. My God... Well, ya wanna know a secret? Since I'm exposing all your sh*tty little kinks, I'll tell you one of mine..." He licks his lips and drags his tongue across my lips. "I kept trying to keep you from giving me hickeys because I have a biting kink. Whether it's me doing the biting or you, it turns me on." Flashing his teeth at me, he shuffles his hands further down my neck to wrap his jaws around my throat.

Why does it feel so good? I feel so full, so empty, so high, so low... I feel invigorated and awake, but I also feel so drained and exhausted. I can't breathe anymore. His fingers and teeth biting into my flesh... Ah, I want more. More. Him. I want more of him. Bakugou. Only Bakugou. Katsuki. Mine. His.

With a sputtering, jagged whistle of pleasured agony, I start to feel the warm sensation of saliva oozing from the corner of my lip and down my cheek. "Nn. Nnn!"

I've never felt more abhorrently filthy than now. I've never felt this f*cking good, either. He's hitting and dismantling all of what I've wanted. But, he won't kill me. A shame, really. But, for now, this will suffice.

He presses his knee up between my legs and roughly rubs around as he growls out a throaty, baritone moan. "Fu-uck," he gasps while separating me from the wall and shoving me to the floor after turning off the tap. "God. Damn!" His weight presses down in a concentrated area around my abdomen as his knees dig into my guts.

The world in front of me sloshes with waves of a pearly white as my head throbs with intense twinges of pain. "Hnn... Nn..." Writhing in Bakugou's grasp from overstimulation, I begin to rake the nails of my right hand across my wounds and jam them down into the slender, bloodied slits.

"Pups..." he gasps before clamping down onto my throat as if to crush it. "Mmgh!" He now retreats his hands to his sides while my consciousness hiccups and bobs. "O-Oi, Babe, don't..." He reaches for my hand ruthlessly burying itself into my wounds as I frantically suck in breaths of air and hack them back out. "Tch. Guess you f*cking want this, so..." He pries my hand from my wrist and smashes his jaws down onto my wrist steeped in scarlet; I release a gruff shriek through my disorienting gasps. "Nasty. f*ckin'... All this pain's turning you on, Puppy." He strokes his palm over my dick. "Yep. You're f*cking hard as hell. Goddammit, we just washed you, you filthy, worthless mutt. You're disgusting." His tongue swirls around my wrist and pokes at the grooves formed by the lacerations I re-opened.

I'm...obsessed. Without a doubt. Indubitably. I'm addicted. Not so much to the pain itself as I am to him and the fact that he's hurting me and calling me filthy and worthless. Him... I want him. I need him. Good, good, sweet... He's treating me like sh*t—precisely what I want and deserve. That, to me...is what brings a genuine smile to my face. So disgusting.

While wincing with gaiety flooding my mind, I swallow down my yelps of torturous euphoria and hiss through my teeth. "I-I'm your worthless...filthy mutt," I grunt through my avid huffs.

Bakugou works his way up my arm while crunching his teeth against my skin like a metal machine. "Baby, I really don't want you calling yourself those things."

"They're... They're true," I counter hoarsely. "They are all—"

He gulps down my words with a kiss that cloaks my lips, but once he pulls back, the taste of copper lingers in my mouth. "Shut the f*ck up," he grumbles before groaning softly as he begins to gnaw at my neck again. "My little twink's not gonna have very g-good hickeys. No good. Well, doesn't mean I won't be eating every. f*cking. Inch of you, Puppy."

Devouring my flesh from my shoulders to my ass to my feet, Bakugou racks me not with any means of prevarication. Once he's satisfied with his final product, he smirks down at my breathless, quivering body. I meet his eyes but promptly avert my gaze from his in my horrifically flustered, torpid state.

"I know...I've been putting this off for as long as f*cking possible," he sighs while pulling at my chin to force my gaze back upon his. "But I sure as hell don't regret dining on the f*cking feast and a half that you are. Tch. So f*cking...happy, huh? God, that's a bullet to the heart. sh*t. Sho, I... f*ck it. If this is what makes you happy, I'll give it to you. Just this once, got it? No more. It's terrible for both of us."

Just this once...

I thought I would let him cling to me without any resistance just that one time...and he raped me. Debilitated and vaguely conscious of my surroundings, I slowly nod. I deserved it, so it isn't though it matters anymore.

He kisses my nose and inflates his chest with a long, leisurely breath. "I'm going to regret this to hell and back—I know I will—but I'll make a pile of regrets to show you that I love you. Even if you don't wanna be loved, that won't stop me from loving the sh*t out of you. Tch. I know... Damn. Ready, Sho?" I nod with subdued fervor, and with that, Bakugou expeditiously nails the back of my skull and my curved whip of vertebrae against the wall. "Remind your master of what you want." His nails crunch into my wrists like the talons of a bird of prey as he jerks me to my feet and teasingly rubs his knee against my crotch.

"Beat... Beat the sh*t out of your worthless toy, M-Master," I yelp with monochrome-infused words. "Urgh..." The elliptical wriggling of the knee kissing my crotch forces a faint groan from my lips before such a stimulating sensation is abruptly torn away; in its place arrives a rounded, patting thud that threatens to sunder my insides from the kneecap clapping against my abdomen. "Nh! Hgh."

Katsuki, why does it feel so damn good? I ask myself while dull, crescent fangs pierce my wrists. f*ck. f*ck! His knee in my guts might as well be his dick in my f*cking prostate. An undulating stream of my stifled moan pours from my throat. Yet, I can't help but cerebrate why the f*ck I've degenerated into the arcane, desperate disaster that I am currently. The swagger and brio in Bakugou's lumbering, harsh ripples of teeth tantalizing the firm, leftmost bulge from my chest grinds haste into my breaths. Knowing that the person who loves me the most would draw my blood and damage my body is exhilarating to such an extent that I'm moaning like a filthy animal, and I hardly have any control over the disgraceful sounds contaminating my lips.

The jaws digging into my chest release a brief groan as Bakugou's dick caresses mine. "f*ck it," he gasps before promptly gripping my shoulders with his digits dappled in crimson. "You're mine, Puppy, and I'm gonna bite the sh*t out of you." Like ravenous arachnids prancing across my fingers, Bakugou's teeth skitter around my flesh and drill down apace. "Mrgh." His bestial jaws rasp my wrists as his slithering tongue hisses through my open wounds where the blood flow hasn't yet been staunched.

"You're worthless, Shoto. Do you know what that means? It means that no one wants you. No one needs you. No one would be the slightest bit perturbed if you died. It would be better that way."

I should...kill myself? I should kill myself. I want to kill myself. I will kill myself. I need to kill myself...

Before long, both of my arms have become turgid with sprouting lumps of red. A cacophony of compressed mewls and guttural groans soar and sink together like fluttering butterflies waltzing in the wind as an animalistic, slick yet granular muscle of pink varnishes the tender patches littering my flesh with a glistening glaze of sweet saliva.

"K-Katsuki..." I gasp with a voice shredded by the serrated rocks of a muddled consciousness. "Ah... Don't stop. It feels ph-phenomenal." My riled-up co*ck doesn't lie as it jabs at Bakugou's like a sword. "I never th—gngh! Ng!" A pair of hands throttle my throat with the ungainly flying of their digits as they coil around my neck. "Nn. Nh!"

[Innocent eyes may resume]

"Look at you...you sick f*ck," he huffs while his hands shiver as my pulse drums at them from my flesh. "Shoto, you...would be better off dead..." Sharp discomfiture and salty remorse scorch the tapering, fading, disintegrating melody of his creaking, wind-wrapped voice.

I writhe in unadulterated, inviolate ecstasy from the spears of convulsion suffocating the sounds of reality with the din of a winding, taut yet shuddering string of buzzing. My skull feels as though it's begun to distend with the liquidized caws of my oscillating blood flow from the interludes of relief from Bakugou's tenacious hands around my neck.

I can't breathe, but this time, I feel nothing but absolute joy. f*ck. f*ck, it's so addicting. I want more. I need more. Bakugou. Only Bakugou. Mine. His. Katsuki. More. Him. More of him. I'm f*cking obsessed. It feels so good. It hurts so f*cking much but feels so f*cking good. Why does it hurt so much to want to die, but it feels so good when it feels like I'm dying? Katsuki, please bring it all to an end. Only you.

As my consciousness begins to ebb away and my exultant thrashing melts down into languid, maladroit spasms, Bakugou abruptly releases me from his iron grasp. "B-Babe..."

Dry gasps prick my throat as I gulp down the air with such intense ferocity that it feels as though my sternum wedges itself between my lungs each time I inhale or exhale. With flimsy limbs of jelly to support my body as I struggle up to my knees, I crane my neck to stare up at Bakugou's lachrymose, petrified expression.

"P-Please..." I plead in a hoarse gasp, but Bakugou responds by scrunching his eyes closed. "Kat—"

"No," he mutters in a flat, rusty undertone while pressing his palm to his forehead. "No, Shoto... C'mon. Let's...wash up." He twists the tap on again and soon floods the air with jewels of water.

I'm desperate, Katsuki. Itch. An itch. A ceaseless itch plagues my mind. It's alleviated with the pain. I want to dig through my flesh with my nails until I hear the click of nail on bone. It itches. It throbs. It's like a scar. Make it stop.

I hack up a few petals of saffron before panting, "Katsuki, I—"

"f*ck. No," he acrimoniously snarls. "Funny h-how f*cking sh*t you were at begging before. Look at you now...literally begging at my feet. Begging for me to torture you... Sho, it hurts me so damn much to deliberately try to f*ck you up, to know that that's what you want, and that it's what you think you deserve. Why the hell did I give it to you? Because it put a genuine f*cking smile on your face. I want you to be happy...but not like this. For f*ck's sake..." He sharply inhales as he gently clutches his shoulders and kneels down beside me. "I feel like such a sh*t influence, and, frankly, I don't wanna be a dick and be around you if all I'm doing is rubbing salt into the wound. Look, Babe, I'm always gonna love you, and I never want this relationship to end, but I-I don't want to f*cking f*ck things up more than I already have! So, I wanna make a proposition... Shoto, let's take some time apart from each other."

More than anyone, you should know how badly I'd want to go through another attempt during that period of time. I'm nothing without you. I need you. I'm so f*cking desperate. You're mine, Katsuki. I'm yours. Imagining a day without you...makes me feel so damn empty. So hollow. So numb. Yet, the pain remains the same. It wants me to die. I want the pain. Therefore, we have another circle of truth. I want to feel you beside me. I want to hear your breaths and heartbeat. I want to drown in your voice. I'm so alone without you. I want you. Yet, it's all so uncomfortable. I don't deserve any of it. I can never win, can I? f*ck my luck.

"I...don't want to," I reluctantly admit while washing off my burning arms. "I don't want to leave your side. I don't care if it kills me. I just...want you. No one else. Nothing else. Only you..." I deeply inhale and exhale in an attempt to placate my livid pulse and ragged breaths.

I catch a glimpse of Bakugou's quivering lips before his expression is smudged into a wry scowl. "I don't wanna leave your side, either," he sibilates before brusquely bashing his wrists against the floor like a hammer to a stone. "And that'swhat's f*cking killing you!" he snarls while I unconsciously solidify his hands in a prison of a shimmering, pastel blue; rather than writhing like a cantankerous animal with a cone around its neck, he simply grits his teeth. "Babe, I've been so f*cking afraid of making the wrong goddamn decision and f*cking it all up for you. I've always been way more lenient than I should be with you, but now it's all my f*cking fault for the sh*t you've been going through. Tch... Everything. It's my f*cking fault. I feel like such a f*cking failure. Such a f*cking disappointment. I feel like f*cking sh*t." His chest trembles as he inhales. "Shoto, I've started to realize the goddamn addictive appeal of self-destruction. Every time I know there's a new scar on your body, your mind, or even just your health, I f*cking implode, but I-I can't keep it to myself any longer. I want you to know the truth, Shoto. I just can't keep this all to myself anymore, or I will hurt you and everyone else around me, and I will f*cking regret it with every goddamn centimeter of my being.

"Sho, I wanted to be someone you could look up to. I wanted to be the model you'd use to break your destructive habits, but in doing that, I was blind to the grand f*ckin' toll that took on me. So, you know what? Because we're both f*cked up, we're gonna f*cking get through this...together. Until I get what I f*cking want, I won't stop moving towards my goals. And I want you, Shoto, to be happy. I want you to feel better, even if it's just a tiny f*cking bit. If you won't fight for your happiness, I will. I'm fighting for my own happiness in this sea of my sh*tty regrets and decisions, but I'm never not gonna fight for yours, too. Hear me? I f*cking love you—more than I'll ever be able to admit—and I won't stop fighting for your happiness, Shoto. I don't care what the hell your opinion is, because I'm gonna fight for you, your happiness, your health... Shoto Todoroki. Yeah, you stay those pretty-ass eyes on me, you little f*cker. I'm so f*cking afraid of losing you, Shoto. I don't know what the hell I'd do without you now, but I'm terrified to try and imagine it..."

While my pernicious flames bite into the shackles of ice binding Bakugou's hands together, I gradually digest Bakugou's pontification.

I think you would prosper without my presence to cast a shadow over your image. It's my fault, Katsuki. I caused this all. Your love and my selfish acceptance of it without reciprocation caused this. Because of me, you feel like a failure, a disappointment, and like sh*t. Because of me, you've sacrificed—decimated, razed, disintegrated, ruthlessly tortured to death, etcetera, more accurately—your own happiness for the happiness of something that has absolutely no desire to be happy anymore. Because of me, your wrists have been scarred and bruised. Because of me...you know what self-destruction feels like. My own selfishness is tearing you apart as we speak. You refuse to kill the person killing you from the inside. You love that person so damn much that it hurts... I detest the tempestuous fulmination of repugnant rapture known as love. I feel as though the true disease here is love itself.

Look at us, Katsuki. This love, this bond, this relationship... Katsuki, they're toxic. They should be disposed of. Why are the most sickening, disgusting, toxic things the things that are the most addictive? We're dependent on each other, yet that dependency is what transfixes our minds with bullets above all else. Katsuki, you're varnishing the facts because of this love of yours you feel towards me. Love seems so innocent and ethereal, yet it truly is the malevolent dictator here. Katsuki, tell me...can you truly see?

My eyes glide across the hickeys painting Bakugou's body, but another truth dawns on me while staring at his sea of bruises. "Don't think about it, then," I finally whisper. "I'm still here, Katsuki. I'm still alive. I'm still right by your side. So, for now..." My lips peck his cheek while my tongue laps up the threads of water strung across it. "You aim to give each day your best shot, yes? Don't allow the unknown to dampen your efforts. If I had saturated my mind with the malignant thoughts of what I'd do if Fuyumi were to be slaughtered before my eyes, I would have simply suffered more. Even if you think about the future and make precautions to approach its perils, the future is unpredictable and cruel. That doesn't mean that no precautions should be established, but brooding will yield no reward with positive connotations." I now clasp his frigid hands and bring each individual digit to my lips.

A vague hue of rose yawns across Bakugou's cheeks while he flicks off the tap again and brings the both of us to our feet. "You talk about her death so damn casually..." he remarks in a vexed sigh as he ensconces us into a yellow towel. "I mean, I get what you're saying, but I've started to realize something, Shoto: ever since the hospital, you've been...colder." He deftly weaves the towel around my body before fetching another towel to dry himself off. "I can't f*cking tell if you're repressing how you really feel, or if you're just—I don't f*cking know what to call it—not feeling as much as you were before. I know you don't want to feel, but is closing yourself off from your emotions really gonna fix anything?" He now begins to treat my wounds and wrap them up. "The problems are still there, Sho. Don't tell me that it means you won't have to feel the pain of having your... Y-Your f*cking life-threatening problems. Sho, when you numb yourself, you don't see how detrimental something is until it's way too f*cking late. Babe, we can get through this with your emotions intact. Look, I'm... Shoto, I can't f*cking help but worry about you."

While Bakugou starts to mop up the water lingering atop his flesh, I ruffle my hair with my towel. "Katsuki, I don't want to talk about this." My eyes narrow as a smirking, cold emotion suffuses my blood.

He curls his towel around his waist and steps out of the bathroom. "I know you don't want to—"

"You cannot force me to speak of what I wish not to dredge up the abhorrent implications of," I mutter while following suit behind Bakugou and rummaging through the bag I keep at his house for my clothing. "What will you do?" I cringe as I slip on a fresh pair of boxers, and once I glance over at Bakugou, I realize that he's already a step ahead of me and is now standing beside me.

He winces and peels back his lips. "I'll...beat the f*cking truth out of you, you worthless, suicidal piece of sh*t..." Tears of crystalline pool at the inner peripheries of his eyes.

Please do, Katsuki. "Do you...want glass to—"

"No." He sucks in a swift, gritty breath through his teeth before his placid, unstable voice melts my ears. "Never... I'm never going to do that, Shoto. Shoto, I never wanna hurt you after what I did. Christ, I-I felt like sh*t!" His level-headedness erupts into a fireworks display of visceral vehemence. "I'm never gonna let it go... I'm never g-gonna f*cking forget that I had the f*cking audacity to hurt you! And I made you hurt me when I knew it was killing you to watch. I don't have goddamn words for the sh*t I've done. Shoto, I just..." He buries his face into the palms of his hands before his fingers twitch and curl inwards; I hesitantly wrap my bandaged arms around his broad chest. "f*ck! God f*ckingdammit!" He rests his forehead against mine as his exasperated sobs breach the air like lances of saline, soughing sorrow.

We're both liars, Katsuki, I inwardly begin to maunder while mustering up a considerable portion of my strength to lift my boyfriend into my arms. Yet, I'm curious. I'm thoroughly bemused by the fact that my first thought was not about the fact that you're breaking down in front of me, or anything pertaining to your emotional state. Why? I care about him... I settle down on Bakugou's bed with his head resting atop my chest. I need him. Mine. But...my existence is what tortures him so. Fleeting happiness for extensive mental wounds. Is it worth it? No. So...

"Off."

These f*cking memories can burn in hell. Funny. That seems like something Katsuki would say to me—with a few tweaks. When did I begin to swear as frequently as I do now?

"The only reason someone would f*ck trash as worthless as you would be to beat you from the inside."

"I'm right here..." I reassure him while gently traipsing my left hand across his back. "It's all right, Darling." My right hand intertwines with his as an ephemeral flash of something warm and malleable gleams in Bakugou's eyes of drowned flames.

I brush my lips across his, but such a sublime sensation—yet also a disgusting one—is sundered by my pulling away. Petals pull at my lungs, so I simply tuck Bakugou into the reservoir of warmth from the blankets on his bed before sliding into the bathroom. For at least a minute, I'm unable to breathe. The flowers strung up in my lungs refuse to uproot themselves.

It feels like I'm approaching the gates of Death.

Not...now. Breathe. Live. Fight. I cannot die right now. But I can't breathe. I'm losing consciousness. Dammit. Cough them up. Cough them up!

Finally, my body obeys my command, and my system is purged of the golden flowers infecting my body. Yet, even I cannot deny that this incident of hacking up petals could have been my final incident.

Once I return to Bakugou, I crawl up beside him and rest his head against my chest. Inhaling and exhaling slowly but steadily, I comb my fingers through his silky strands of ash-blonde.

You must be very sleepy. I'll fight for your happiness, Love. This way...we can both be happy. I know, Katsuki. Perhaps all is a mere excuse for my own selfish desires, but I'd like to believe that this is for us. If I lost you, Katsuki, that would be it. I would not hesitate to kill myself. I'm sorry, Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Mom, Natsuo...even Endeavor, but if anything were to happen to Katsuki, I would self-destruct until nothing of me remained to entertain the idea of salvaging. But, I'm not a good person. So...

About an hour is sifted away into the past before Bakugou drifts into an adorable repose. His rich breaths sigh across my chest. The faint tinge of a certain tenderness pervades the sleeping room.

Katsuki, I've started to realize something: this resolute, warm feeling whenever I'm around you...holds a truth I've been denying. I want you. I need you. I'm obsessed with you. Katsuki, I think that I genuinely do...love you. That feels perplexingly right to think. I love you, Katsuki. I truly do love you. Ah? The serrated, serpentine claws of yellow that insidiously ensnare my lungs recede and unravel; roots of neglect shrivel up as the yellow chrysanthemum flowers preying off of my lungs and stomach begin to wilt. All along... I truly am selfish. I truly am beloved by adversity. I truly am in love with you.

As though breathing in solely oxygen, I hold fast the fresh, cool river of air pouring into my lungs before dispensing an alleviating stream of carbon dioxide. "I love you," I mouth to Bakugou once I've filled my lungs with air again.

Four hours of dissociating from reality and soaring through my self-deprecating thoughts have passed, and I once again utter to Bakugou that I love him. Gingerly slipping out from his embrace of warmth and the retained heat resting in the sheets, I lower myself to the floor and prance my hands through my bag until I've gathered a shirt and a pair of pants. While tugging on my shirt, I grimace at the filth which is what remains of my body, and my body itself.

I'm sorry you had to fall in love with a suicidal cutter, I rebuke myself with liquid vitriol. Seeing my exposed scars beseeches that I carve through my entire body until I've cut through all of my flesh, and yet...I'm disgusted. I'm disgusting. I should eat and regain my strength since I keep losing weight, but I just don't feel like it. I don't want to. I'm tired of eating. I'm tired of walking. I'm tired of breathing. I finally dress myself and shuffle through my satchel for what I'm looking for. Katsuki, I'm so tired. Everything feels so numb when I can't hear your voice. I hardly gave two sh*ts about how traumatizing it was when Endeavor raped me when you f*cked me. Had I been with anyone but you, Katsuki...

With a light crinkle and a sway, I slide my palm up against the surface of Bakugou's desk before sliding either hand into my pocket and retrieving my phone from my heap of clothes on the floor. I now exit Bakugou's living establishment. My fingers swiftly tap away at the keyboard on my phone as I break into a jog.

It's half-past eleven, so I should be there by six, but hopefully before that. Funny. I'm not sad. I'm not scared. I don't particularly feel anything right now. But, I guess I'm sorry. Yet, I'm also not. It's all a blur. Everything is so clear. It doesn't make sense. I understand it all. I'm tired... I'm tired of thinking. Not yet. Keep moving. Keep flying. Until reality and my subconsciousness collide, keep going.

Within a matter of mere minutes, my chest lurches with the scratching, ticklish flutter of the residual flowers and petals lingering in my lungs. Hacking up the viridescent leaves, ripe petals of a summer yellow, and a few chrysanthemum flowers of rounded, scarlet-stained beauty—all of which are steeped in the black of the night—I decide to carry with me one of the flowers.

I never did rectify those wrongs or regrets, did I? I'm so lost. In this labyrinth of life, I'm lost. What turn is the correct one? Where am I going? I know the end exists, but I can't see it. How far along in this journey am I? How many predetermined exits are there? How many have I forged for myself? I'm so lost.

Once I arrive at the bridge with superficial wings of glass and silver, I leisurely reminisce over the countless visits I once paid this bridge. Flecks and ribbons of gold and orange smudge the exterior edges of the bridge from the luminescent city that never seems to sleep. Approaching the railing, I rest my forearms atop its arms and stare down at the bustling city beneath my feet.

How many times did I try to jump? I cogitate as the minute soughing of the wind caresses my hair and ears. I don't know, but there was always something that caused me to keep surviving. Something never ceased to loosen the noose around my neck. It's so exhausting. My body is desperate to live without injury. My mind is desperate for me to suffer and die. I start to kill myself, and the pain of doing so is unparalleled, but my body thrashes in its death throes until I'm desperately endeavoring to live. An enigmatic smile materializes on my mien. I want to die this time. I don't want to survive. I don't want something to intervene. I don't want to be alive. Please. I'm...so tired of having this torturous, tantalizing noose around my neck that's been conjured up by my mind. I don't see myself erasing how much I want to die, so I'll simply erase myself.

Peering up at the ocean of sky mottled with waves of stars, I reach into my pocket for my folded note and set it down before my feet. Why is it that the most beautiful things only truly appear in the darkest of hours? The petals of my selfish regrets... The one that's placated the undulating, turgid noose of my mind enough for me to still be alive... A declaration of reconciliation... A confession of mutual amelioration... This revelation of truth that grants me both liberty and the validation of this final choice... I place the yellow chrysanthemum flower beside the note and adhere the underside of it to the bridge with a bit of ice.

I want to die, so...what's stopping me? Leap. Fly. Fly away. Fly away from this world. Leave it all behind. All my regrets, the pain and emotions that fill my lungs with a fluid that isn't even tangible, any future mistakes I might make... Damn. Tomorrow...will be better, right?

"I'm sorry, Katsuki," I sigh as I tightly clasp the railing of the bridge, "but this is how I'll fight for your happiness. All because of me...you've suffered for far too long. I can't agitate the cuts I've inflicted on you if I don't exist. I love you, Katsuki." I force a light chuckle from my throat as my desiccated smile widens.

Withdrawing my hands from the peripheries of the bridge, I furtively weave through the inky seams of the frigid, placid night as the wind frolics through my clothing and jubilantly sings in my ears. A slice of the stars severing slits of light into the void of the sky grazes my vision before the toothless jaws of darkness snap across my eyes. Pointing my nose to the ground beneath my feet, I once again inhale deeply through my nose and slovenly eject a stream of my breath into the ocean of reality.

It's funny how much I now relish being able to breathe like this. Savor every breath until they dissipate wholly with my death. The end only ever draws nearer. Soon. Almost. Not yet. I'll be there.

Light and shadow weld together as my eyes stare down at the shuffling ground. Once I lift my head to the cityscape sprawling out before me in a halcyon flourish of ebullient grandeur, I also lift my phone from my pocket again and begin to type. The harsh yet faint illumination of my phone fleetingly sears my eyes with white as though staring down at a plateau of sun-kissed snow.

Katsuki, how different would this have all been if I'd been happy? If I'd gotten better? Something I've always wanted to do—ever since I was young—is cuddle up next to someone close to me by a fire on the moonlit beach. I've always wanted something like that. If I had been happy, would I have been able to entirely evade this disease? If so...we certainly could have done that when we were at the beach. Katsuki, why would you have confessed to someone who you knew was suicidal? You could have been much happier now if you'd never confessed to me. Yet, I reciprocated under the false impression that my own reciprocation was duplicitous. Now look at us. Katsuki, are we not both the victims of self-destruction because of each other? Look at us. We're both killing each other as much as we are ourselves. Look at us.

The pattering rhythm of my footsteps, breaths, blinking, typing, and heartbeat pound prominently at my head, yet the inanity of such filthy melodies renders them merely as subliminal songs that swish and overlap with each other around my head. After roughly four hours of the staccato of idle, insignificant, and daft reams of involuntary notes reverberating silently through my skull, I finally send off my individual text messages to Bakugou, Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Natsuo, Mom, and Endeavor; I send a single message to the group chat made while I was unconscious.

I'm sorry, everyone.

I'm very glad to have met you all. Thank you for making our class what it's been. I'll be leaving now, so this is my final goodbye. I'm sorry to do this, but I'll forever be thankful for all of you. Tell Aizawa I'm thankful for him as well. And Eri.

I'm sorry, Natsuo.

I'm sorry I never got to see you again after the funeral, Natsuo, but I'm leaving permanently. I'm sorry for being a failure of a brother and leaving you behind. I want you to know that Endeavor is working towards making amends. He's trying. Give him a chance, please. Even Fuyumi wished to do the same. Anyway. Natsuo, thank you for playing volleyball with me when we were kids. I had more fun than you can imagine. Oh, and if you're curious, I'm not doing this because of Endeavor. Not at all. I'm doing this for my own reasons. So, goodbye, and thank you, Natsu.

I'm sorry, Midoriya.

I'm sorry about how much I worried you with my questionable eating habits. I appreciate how much of your time you spent trying to help me. I still cannot thank you enough for what you did at the Sports Festival. You truly did save me from drowning in my own hatred, Midoriya. I've never looked up to someone and seen them as my Hero until that day. You are my Hero, Midoriya. Thank you. You were also the first person to get me to smile in at least a year. I'll miss your smile. Thank you for smiling.

I'm sorry, Yaoyorozu.

I don't know if I would have been able to live this long if it weren't for you. After the night you treated my wounds from the glass and allowed me to eat a wonderful meal, I made a lot of invaluable memories. I owe that all to you. You've helped me when I've most needed it, and yet I still have nothing to offer in return. I'm sorry. Thank you, though. You have been so kind to me. You've always been there for me. No matter what it is, you're always willing to help me. Even when I called you at some late hour of the night because I was a fool and cut too deeply, you were there for me. I'm eternally grateful for you, Yaoyorozu. Have I ever told you how beautiful your smile is?

I'm sorry yet not sorry, Bakugou.

Katsuki, I love you. I love you. It feels so right to type this. I love you, Katsuki. This queer emotion has at last intertwined ourselves with each other. I don't regret tonight. I don't regret agreeing. I don't regret telling you the truth. I am yours and you are mine. I can't stop repeating those words to myself. I can't stop repeating your name to myself. I can't stop thinking about you. Katsuki, our love feels like it's somehow been malformed. I feel like it's become my obsession. I feel like it's become my addiction. I want it. I hate it because I don't deserve it. Above that, I want it. I want it so much. So badly. Yet, my desperation has led us here. I'm sorry, Katsuki. Just as I was slowly beginning to say "Katsuki" without stuttering... Did I ever tell you that, to me, you're perfect? Perfect. So perfect. As though anyone else would surely dent that polish. I love you, Katsuki. In case you didn't notice, I left a note for you on your desk. Don't forget to flip it over. Thank you for everything, Katsuki. You've prevented me from going through with it and ending it all more than once. It's not your fault that I'm doing this now. I'm the only one culpable in this disgusting act. I love you, Katsuki. That's why I'm doing this. This is how I'm fighting for your happiness. You proved that you would be so much better off without me. I can't convince myself that I don't deserve to die, so I'm going to be selfish one final time. I love you, Katsuki.

I'm sorry, Mom.

I wish I could have sent you a text message, but I don't believe you're allowed to have a phone. So, I hope this letter finds its way from Bakugou to you. I suppose I never got to tell you that he's my boyfriend. I hope that's okay with you. As it is, I don't know how to feel about loving another guy, but I will never be able to express how perfect he is. Regardless, I wanted to thank you for everything, Mom. From taking care of and defending me as a child to supporting and offering praise to me over these past few years. Yet, I have something to confess to you that I couldn't say to Fuyumi in time: every smile that I've given you...has never once been actually true. It hurt to smile and also to lie to you, but I guess I'm glad I didn't worry you for as long as I could have. Enough of me. Ever since you left, I've never harbored any ill feelings towards you for what happened. I'm so thankful to have had you as my mother, but I have to go. I'm sorry that I failed to become the Hero I wanted to be.

I'm sorry, Endeavor.

If you really want to know what you've done to me while intoxicated, I'll tell you. I'll spare you the fine details, though. I won't lie, Father...but you truly did beat the desire to die into me. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, you beat me. I can't say you were wrong to make something worthless wish to erase itself from the world, but I'll never forget the pain. You struck me not simply with blows meant to punish my existence...because the things you said to me left greater wounds than the glass you punctured my body with. It was so painful. I started to hate myself to such an unhealthy, extreme extent that I asked my own boyfriend to torture me to death. You told me I was worthless, Father. You told me I would never be enough. You told me I was a failure that disgraced the Todoroki name. You called me a mistake. You referred to me by "it," as though I was just an object to you. You said that I was a waste of a f*cking life. I don't deserve to be alive. I'm unf*ckable trash that would only be f*cked to be beaten from the inside. I'm a sh*tty toy. Despite that, Father...you stripped me and raped me. To this day, I can't erase the memories. They replay over and over again in my head in such vivid, filthy colors. Sometimes, I can't eat because I remember that night, but even before that, I still struggled. I've never been more terrified of men—myself included—and I sometimes wish I wasn't one. I'm not comfortable with being one. After being beaten enough, I questioned it. After being touched, I disliked being one. After you raped me, I just couldn't function the same; it took a while for my thoughts and feelings to culminate. I can feel the pain every time I remember, and there are far too many things that trigger those memories. I struggle to look anyone in the eyes if their eye color is even vaguely reminiscent of yours. It took quite a while for me to adjust to Midoriya's eyes, but even then, I can't forget the familiar eyes which stared at me where they shouldn't have. Even before that night, though, you touched me with such a foul, lascivious look in your eyes. I was timid at first when I implied that I wanted you to stop, but as the months went by, you didn't stop. You kept touching me. Rubbing me. Cuddling me. All of it was highly inappropriate. Yet, I got used to knowing you wouldn't stop once you started. You reminded me that no one would or could care if someone as worthless as whatever I am killed itself. You branded me with the letter E on my shoulder with glass, but I carved over it. You seldom allowed me to eat. You threatened me if I tried to. I was so thin and enfeebled that it was normal for me to pass out while failing at my training. I was beaten for being alive. You told me to kill myself, Father. I'm sorry you had to be burdened with having me as your son, if you truly do consider me to be one to you. Even so, I'm proud of you, Father. I wanted to save you, and I'm glad to have opened your eyes. I know it can't be easy in the slightest to overcome your addiction to alcohol. Funny. We both became addicted to something to cope with our own mistakes. If you're curious, you told me all those things to the point where I believed them and repeated them to myself, and with that, I became addicted to cutting to cope. Yes, I lied during both conversations. I honestly don't know why you believed me. The scissors and glass you found are the primary blades I use to cut. I told you over text that I didn't attempt after writing the suicide note you found, but I did. I slit my wrists. Horrifically. I would have bled out swiftly, but I stopped myself because of Bakugou. But, I can't do this anymore. Remember the suicide note you found? It's not my first, and nor is it my last. It's honestly not your fault. It's entirely my own fault. You're still a Hero, Father. Don't be foolish. That's all I could ask now. Do what's right. I believe in you. I don't hate you. Thank you for trying to become someone you can be proud of, Father. If you'd like, head to the bridge seldom visited.

Before I can send off my final text to Endeavor—I'd written every message down in my notes and copied and pasted to my messages—I receive a message from Yaoyorozu.

Regardless of how damn late or early it might be, you never cease to reply to me in a timely manner. How? Have you configured your settings to ensure that you'll awaken to my messages or calls? Is that...how much you care? How much you don't want to lose me? How?

Yaoyorozu: Wait.

Yaoyorozu: I'm going to your dorm right now, but I don't know if you're there. Please think about this.

Yaoyorozu: Please answer me if you're still there.

Yaoyorozu: We love and care about you.

I know that I'm loved, but I will never love myself. It's difficult to offer love, even when I'm open to giving it when someone else needs it. I have never felt so loved by the people around me, but I can still do something like this to them. If I can't love myself, then I don't want anyone else to love me, either.

Me: I'm sorry. Don't bother trying to reach me.

As the icon flashes across my screen that Yaoyorozu is typing, I shut off my phone completely and tuck it back into my pocket with frigid fingers. My breaths spin into a snarl of numb, sharp, and noxiously bitter emotion, yet I feel perfectly calm.

It all feels like a dream. Dream? I suppose a nightmare would be more accurate. Even so, I can't deny the wonderful moments I've experienced here. I've met so many kind people. I've seen such stunning views, too—Katsuki included. I'm...thankful. It almost feels wrong to desire my own death. But I can't live with the person I am. Person? No. I can't live with the thing that allowed its sister to be hanged. I'm the reason why my own father is addicted to alcohol. I subjected a child to someone being tortured. Innumerable lies have fallen from my lips—I could construct a palace with them and declare myself the prince, lord, ruler, king, monarch... I'm just tired. Thinking of all those closely-related words made me realize something: I'm a bit tired of them as well. I wanted some flavor—some zest, if you will—to distract me from the rotten, bland taste of the plain, simple truth. But what does it matter? No matter what words I use to describe something, the truth is still the truth. Why is it all so f*cking draining? I'm tired of having to care. I'm tired of feeling. I'm tired.

Serendipitously, while absent-mindedly plodding on through my tramp to what is my final destination, it dawns on me that I'm capable of alleviating the chilling soreness of my dry throat by melting my ice. However, I indulge in no such exploit to survival. My stomach tosses and groans, but why polish the trash? Why burn the precious resources? Why nurture my own selfishness while depriving the selfless? I've not a feasible, nor just answer, and therefore...

I don't deserve any of it. I never did. Why...was so much wasted on something worthless? Something... I'm a f*cking human, according to Bakugou. I'm Shoto Todoroki. I matter. I'm going to want to live again. I'm loved. I'm pretty. I'm beautiful. I'm perfect. What perfect lies. I'm a f*cking toy. I'm whatever someone sees me as. I don't f*cking matter. The day I want to live again will be the day I kill myself for wanting to live. I don't love myself. I'm an ugly sh*t stain. I'm filthy. I'm...not perfect. I don't need to adorn the truth with some fancy title or string of descriptive words. I'm just not perfect—plain and simple.

Finally arriving at a beach nearby Tokyo—Odaiba Beach—around half past five in the morning, I sigh at the curved plates of silver ramming smoothly at the sand. I slovenly slide my legs past one another as the oceanic hum of watery curtains being drawn open and rolled back closed whistles in my ears. Salt licks my nose as a smattering of water tickles my face from the water droplets whirling up from the waves smacking the ground and being caressed by the minor breeze.

Retrieving my note and a poem I wrote when I was twelve from my pocket, I create a small slab of ice and pin the papers down onto its surface with a pin of ice. Sitting beside my final notes to be found, I ignite a small ember of a flame from my left palm and lean my head as though Bakugou is at my side.

Emotions are something I shouldn't show.
Well, did you know...
Every night, I cry, sob, break down, and weep?
Into a hero surpassing All Might will I grow.
But, did you know...
The pieces of me you break are things I can't keep?
The seeds of a good future am I supposed to sow.
So, did you know...
I long to slit my wrists to take away the future you seek?
In your eyes, I'm a disgrace that's sunken too low.
Say, did you know...
Every day, I'm tortured by my thoughts that make my eyes leak?
If I'm so weak, then out the window my dreams go.
It hurts, but did you know...
I let you throw away all my dreams into your own fire?
My reactions are becoming so slow.
I know, but did you know...
Self-destruction is my main desire?
The voices in my head are so loud.
One person staring at me feels like an entire crowd.
It feels like the person I am is slipping away.
I killed the me that came to be yesterday.
I'm trapped, I'm trapped—I can't get out.
I'm fading, I'm fading—without a doubt.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much...
I fall apart more only at your touch.
There's one thing I'll never show...
But it's the worthless topic of how much I dream of dying, though.
So, Endeavor, did you know?

"I love you, Katsuki..." I repeat to myself again as a familiar, ravishing smile haunts my mind and pinches the edges of my lips. "I finally fulfilled my dream...didn't I? Yet, you're not here. But I can pretend like you are. I guess I can't fulfil that dream. But I was close. Isn't that enough?" Tears begin to materialize from my eyes, and finally, I allow them to fall. "Funny. I'm not sad, Katsuki. It's all so numb. So pointless. So useless. So blurry. I'm not sad, so why am I crying? I'm not happy, so why am I smiling? I don't know. I don't know... It kills me not to know, you know?" I extinguish the chirping flame in my hand while canting my head to stare at the stars.

"If I could see the stars during the day, do you think I'd be so lost in this labyrinth of life? If I didn't have to wait until the cover of night to decide and advance, how far do you think I could've run? If I stopped wishing for an answer and started working for an answer—if I hoped not for what I wanted, but rather worked for what I wanted—do you think I'd have an answer? I don't know, Katsuki. But I'm okay. Because you're here... Because I'm yours... Because you're mine... Because of you, I'm fine. I feel fine. It's all dull. But I'm not trapped in a web of sorrow. Maybe I'm lying to myself, but I guess this is what it feels like to be fine for me. Fine...feels like nothing. And that's fine. Even if I want to disappear, drag glass across my arms, have my lover beat me to death, and have my lover hate me, that's okay.

"Katsuki, I think about you hurting me, and I suddenly shiver with delight. Yet...I don't know if I just want to believe that that would be something that makes me happy. Even though I don't want to be happy, I know you want me to be happy, and you want me to want to be happy. So, if something you did to me made me happy, wouldn't that be enough? If what you did hurt me, wouldn't that suffice? Wouldn't we both be pleased? I don't know." I stand up to my feet and slip off my shoes. "It's an odd feeling to be able to see a rough timer for your life...but the moment it's down to the last grains of sand, it suddenly stops. It's a dud. The bomb doesn't explode. Despite that...you're more prepared to die than ever. The hell you fought through...torpefied you. So, even though that timer left you with so many scars, it stopped ticking. Even though it stopped ticking, a part of you wanted to watch the grains fall. Even though you wanted to watch those grains, now you're watching more grains fall from a different timer—your own timer. Even though you survived it all, you would still throw it all away. You're such a fool, and you know that, too. But you just don't care. Katsuki, I can still hear that old timer ticking in my head."

I'll never fathom why, but as my feet sink into the frigid water of the ocean, my smile widens, and the tears raining from my eyes begin to slink down my cheeks like creeks of silver. It's like my body desires nothing more than to sever the noose my mind now constricts my neck with again, but it conveys its message with a sardonic slice of adversity. Even so, the gentle waves climb up to my knees. The beautiful dolphins of an inky gray rush across my thighs as I gradually begin to wade in their glacial grasp.

It's been said that drowning is one of the most painful ways to die if you just won't die until the very end, I cerebrate as my body quakes from the freezing water singeing my abdomen. I guess I could slit my wrists. Deep enough to bleed, but not deep enough to bleed out. I hope to drown for as long as I can muster. Perhaps bring myself back to the surface just to drown myself again. And repeat the process...until I've exhausted myself to the point where I've been incapacitated. Maybe I'll get to see another dawn while I torture myself. I start to swim against and with the swishing of the ocean's soft, mighty waves. I can't stop smiling. I can't stop crying. Maybe, somewhere deep down, I want to be "normal" again. I want to be happy. I want to cry at what's "normal." I want to be a normal person, but I can't be when I'm going to commit suicide by drowning myself. Maybe. I don't know if that's what I want, but it could be. Even though I don't want to be happy, maybe there's a part of me that still longs for that happiness. Even though I don't want to feel, maybe I just... I don't know. I don't understand.

Drawing a blade of ice, I flinch at the unfettering of my own chuckle as the blade pierces through my skin. I jab the blade across my arms and dig down into my wrists, but even the pain is numb. My fingers that grip the blade can hardly feel beyond the tangible tenacity they coil around the ice. Under the lightening sky of onyx mantled with tears of light that appear to have been split into small spears puncturing the seams of the sky, I'm unable to see the blood wrapping around my arms.

Katsuki, I think I hate the fact that I love you. Why? I think you know the reasons. I want to throw away the person you know. I couldn't. I tried to be more like you, but I didn't do a very good job, did I? I love you, but another part of me still doesn't. It feels like...I'm two different people clashing in the same body, yet neither of us wishes to share this body. Neither of us wants to be what makes us us. We hate this body. So...

I enfold my head into the numbing warmth of the ocean, and the familiar feeling of being unable to breathe soon writhes in my chest and strangles my lungs. The hum of breathlessness shrieks through my head as my heart leaps in terror. My body commands me to breathe and gasp, but I bolt my jaw shut to prevent myself from drowning so swiftly.

It burns. I want to breathe. I can't breathe. Hold on. It hurts. It hurts... My head feels like it will split from my body. My lungs feel as though they'll implode. It hurts, Katsuki. But I can't die yet. Not until I've suffered all that my body can endure. Not until this noose of my mind finally draws my last blink of life. Not until I can feel through my benumbed senses...what self-destruction truly feels like.

Once my consciousness begins to melt and trickle away as my chest of incendiary needles contorts and screams and writhes and thrashes to desperately beseech even one taste of air, I lift my head from the water and scorch my lungs with the frigid, salty air of reality. My head itself is a livid ocean that thrusts nauseating waves at my skull. I gasp, cough, gag, and huff, and I greedily gulp the air that stabs my lungs, but in the midst of sucking in another quivering gasp, I plunge my head back into the water to start the same process again.

Until I can't fight my body anymore...keep living. I can't die yet. Until there is nothing left in me to fight, keep living. Until every ounce of my energy has been disposed of, keep living. It f*cking hurts. I want to die. I want to live. I want this torture to end. I want to crawl back onto the sand and gasp for breath until I succumb to an achromatic stupor. I want to dive to the ocean floor and flood my lungs to end this all. Neither... I want to breathe. I need to breathe. I can't breathe. I'm shaking. I'm struggling to kick away Death. Yet... Keep going. Keep drowning. Keep dying. Keep living.

Another round of bullets of oxygen impale my temples and lungs. Another pair of aqua hands begins to choke to death the body of whatever was erstwhile a human being. Another. Again. A gasp. A gasp cut short. Thrashing. An inky gasp. Flooding. Fire. Faint. Fainting. Subtle. Ebbing. Constant ebbing. Cold repose. Scorching awareness. Muddled. Amalgamation.

Life and Death grasp my opposite hands and jerk me left and right, but Death will ineluctably stand as the victor...because no matter what Life may attempt, my body will still be torn apart. But it hurts. My saturated skin feels as though it will tear. My pulsing veins constrict my breaking bones. It f*cking hurts, you know? No, you probably don't. It hurts. f*cking end this f*cking torment. Not now. f*ck! It hurts!

I can't. It's fading. Where...am I? I can't move. My body won't move. It hurts...to the point where I can't feel anything. It's numb. It's dull. It's vanishing. It's...gone. Hey, Katsuki...does my smile look like yours?

Ink. Dripping. Spilling. Seeping. Saturated. Drip. A fountain of ink. Streams. Constricting. Ba-dump. Silence. Dull. Dull silence. Watery silence. Dull, watery silence. Silence...

Chapter 15: Glass Wings

Chapter Text

Katsuki Bakugou
- Month 3, Week 2 -

Creak. Clunk. Click. Tet. Tet. Tet.

“I can’t. Something. Suppress it. Something. Something. Something… Mine. One or the other. Yours. I can’t decide. It’s blank. It’s gone. It’s empty. It’s numb. It’s dull. It’s dead. It’s achromatic. You. It’s lively. It’s here. It’s full. It’s sensitive. It’s sharp. It’s alive. It’s colorful. More. A mesmerizing melody. Tangible touch. A saccharine sight. Tantalizing taste. Fluctuating feelings. Let me out. Let me go. Keep me close. Hold me tight. Help. Help me. I can’t. Something. Remove it. Remove. Remove. Remove… Oh. Forget to remember or remember to forget. Stop. I know. I know. I know. Compromise.”

Trembling hands.

Fsst.

Noncommittal. Waving and reeling. Empty trepidation.

“What if… Don’t let that happen.”

A needle of saffron-tinged cerulean. Wind. Dither. Plunge.

“Do it.”

Beige. Beige besieged. Beleaguered wielder.

Tap. Tap tap.

A vertical stroke. Split. Effervescent cerise. Two slanted, horizontal strokes. Dent. Bubbles. A tent of strokes. Puncture. Beads. A connecting stroke. Scratch. Rivulets of paint. Paint of lies. Lies of delusion. Delusion of truth. Truth of destruction. Destruction of flesh. Flesh of scars. Scars of petals. Petals of lies. Lies…

“I can’t control it.”

Finished product.

“Beautiful.”

Kat. Katsuki. Katsuki Baku. Katsuki Bakugou.

“I did it.”

Scarlet. Scarlet strokes. Scarlet bubbles. Scarlet beads. Scarlet.

“It’s not enough. Let me out. Give me an answer. Tell me. Show me. Help me… Ignore it. Wait. Wait to flee. Time is what’s killing me. How can something so perfect…corrupt me where you can’t see? It hurts. I need more. I need more. You… I need you. Only you. It’s okay. That’s right. ‘It’s okay.’ It’s not okay. I need you. The more I get of you, the more I need you. The less I get of you, the more I fall apart. I can’t get out. I’m suffocating. Help. Let me out. Even if I escape this box, the box is inside a glass case. Balance. Equilibrium. It’s unstable. Fix it. Fix it.”

Scythes. Wavering. Flicker. Stains of light. Erase. Burn. Destroy.

“Good. Good. Good. So good. But it’s bad. Bad. Bad. So bad. What does it mean? In this world of jumbled words, what does it mean? I don’t know. Tell me. Give me an answer. It itches. A ceaseless itch. I need more. I can’t have more. Why? Why? Why? Oh. I know why. I forgot. It kills me. I’m being torn apart. Forget them all. I don’t need them. Remove. But that also removes… More. More. More. Addicted. Stop. Remove. Move. More. It hurts. Help. Let me out. Please…”

Fsst. Tet. Tet. Tet. Click. Clunk. Creak.

“Oi… What’s goin’ on, Sho?”

“Please…keep talking to me.”

Todoroki’s steady breaths and tranquil-ass heartbeat lulled me to sleep in what felt like no time at all. I’d always been the one to scoop up the shards of him that were splintered from his body as I hugged him and told him I was right there, but damn was he good at it, too. Even though he was the one fighting just to keep going every day, he was still there when I started to unravel. Even though he was the one who had the ever-loving sh*t beaten out of him, he listened to my whole-ass string of misery. Even though I knew he wanted to die so damn much, I still had the f*cking audacity to tell him about my problems.

Now torn from the tender warmth of my dreams of seeing Todoroki genuinely happy, I groan at the buzzing of my phone.

f*ckin’...who the hell and why the hell? I ask myself, but the question of paramount importance is where the f*ck my boyfriend is. Ponytail? I blink heavily while flinging myself to the floor and calling out Todoroki’s name.

As I accept Ponytail’s call, I murmur, “The hell—”

“Did you see the texts?” she interjects with whole-ass exasperation devouring her voice.

Trepidation boils my blood before freezing it solid as I check my flood of missed text messages. “No… sh*t, it ain’t gotta do with Shoto, does it?” I blink at the rapid spam of messages pouring into the group chat.

“H-He’s going to kill himself, Bakugou.”

No. No. No! f*ck. Is this a f*cking nightmare? No. I don’t f*cking believe it. Not yet… Not f*cking yet!

“If there’s anyone that knows where he is, it would be you. I don’t know if he’s nearby or far away. I don’t know how he planned to do it. But…we have to hurry. There’s a possibility…”

Kaminari: He isn’t with Bakugou?!

Iida: I’ve now informed Aizawa of this!

I ignore the onslaught of messages from the group chat and open my text from Todoroki. “f*ck! What did he say to the group chat?” My breaths start to spasm as I read over his text. “f*ck, f*ck, f*ck!”

Shoto, if you’re f*cking dead right now, I…

“A thank you and a goodbye. Bakugou, please try to stay calm…and think about where he is,” Ponytail sighs through her broken words.

I shoot like a bullet to snatch Todoroki’s notes that he left for me on my desk. I grip them with quivering tenacity as I begin to throw on some clothing.

Todoroki’s letter to me reads:

Yes. I accept it, Katsuki—I love you. I did love you, but I was blind to such a fact. So, when that day arrived when I was saddled with this disease, I couldn’t see that I was in love with you. I didn’t know what it felt like. Yet, when I thought about the idea of loving my closest friend—a guy, no less—I felt odd. So, I denied it. That denial transformed into rejection. I felt that I didn’t deserve to love you. I figured that my love would dismantle you. I thought love was a “good thing” for so long, and therefore, I didn’t deserve to feel it. I didn’t deserve to have any of it—whether by receiving or giving, I simply didn’t deserve it. Besides, I wasn’t sure of who I was, and even now, I still don’t. My sexuality has always baffled me. I just don’t know. I can’t discern whether you knew that or truly were just f*cking with Endeavor when you gave your “if” spiel. Regardless, it was always love, but I wanted to convert such a repugnant truth into something idyllic and tailored to my own situation. It hurt when I saw you with Kirishima. My chest ached. I felt heavy and drained. Yet, I was unfortunate enough to have deceived myself with the belief that I did not love you prior to when you developed your true feelings for me. I caused this all with one f*cking lie. With just one lie, I spun a web of flowers and petals that left us both with the scars we now wear and cannot remove. The parasitic flowers that took root in my body ended up killing us both so slowly. I’m sorry, Katsuki.

“G-Goddammit!” I hiss while turning the paper over and reading:

Remember where you asked me what it felt like to be fine?

Bolting out the door of my house and launching into the air like some volatile incendiary, I soar towards the bridge where I nearly uttered to Todoroki that I loved him.

“Get some f*cking people and go to the bridge no one ever uses!” I bark while tears ooze from my eyes.

Please don’t let this f*cking be true! How the hell are you fighting for my happiness when you are my f*cking happiness?! Shoto, I swear to f*cking God that I’m gonna f*cking join you if you went through with this! That’s how goddamn much I f*cking love you. I will f*cking die for you, Shoto Todoroki. If you slit your wrists to end your life, I’ll do the same sh*tty thing to myself. I don’t care…how damn selfish it is. I want you! I know I said I hope I don’t die anywhere in the near or distant future, but for f*ck’s sake! I know I said we should take some time apart, but I didn’t mean it like this! Shoto, I thought you didn’t wanna f*cking leave me!

Once I land at the bridge, I wince at the yellow chrysanthemum flower sitting beside a note. Scraping up the note as I peer over the ledge of the bridge, I read:

Where sky meets sea is where I’ll be, Katsuki. I guess I shouldn’t be this cryptic. I went to Odaiba Beach. I’m going to drown myself there. I assume you’re reading this, Katsuki, so I thought I’d say something else, too: when I can intertwine my hands with yours again and you can feel me and I can feel you, can we snuggle at the beach where you kissed me? It’s an odd request, but I thought it sounded like something you’d enjoy as well. You’re very…cuddly. Very warm. Very comfortable. Your hair is a wonderful pillow. Oh, and I don’t know why, but I think I liked it when you called me your princess. It felt right in comparison to being called your prince. Anyway, I’ll have another note and poem for you at Odaiba Beach. Knowing you, I’ll still be walking there as you read this. Yes, I’m walking. Jogging, running, and walking. I love you, Katsuki.

“Oi! Haul whoever you’ve got to Odaiba Beach. He… He’s gonna f*cking drown himself.”

“Wait!” Ponytail snaps. “We’re behind you.”

I glance behind me to see a bolt of emerald with onyx whips flapping around his body—in those whips are some of our classmates, Aizawa, and Recovery Girl.

Shoto, we’d send out a f*cking army to track you down and try to save you. But you don’t want that. You just don’t wanna be loved. God, it f*cking hurts like hell to know I hurt you so damn much. Why the hell…did I let myself get carried away? Why did I even f*cking let us get to the point where I told him I needed his consent? He was f*cking raped. Why…did I let that happen? He says he doesn’t regret it, but I f*cking hurt him.

“He’s heading to Odaiba Beach,” I force myself to utter. “So, move your asses there! Before he f*cking kills himself, mo—”

My words curdle and crumble at the sight of a towering figure of fervent flames approaching from the distance. “Where is my son?” the sh*tty beast demands.

Enji Todoroki

Bzzt!

Although delirious from a throbbing hangover, Enji is half-lidded as his phone groggily stirs his attention. A notification illuminates the screen of his phone, and as he reads his youngest son’s name, he forces himself to sit upright.

The most recent conversation Enji had with his youngest son was a few days prior, and it had been about Shoto’s mental and physical health.

“Shoto, sit down,” Enji ordered his son before the latter could slink off to his room.

Shoto obeyed without a word and sat opposite his father at the kotatsu. “Yes?”

“Have you eaten today?” Enji queried, and much to his chagrin, his son shook his head. “Is this intentional?” He watched as the son he’d driven to write a suicide note shrugged. “Regardless, you will eat.”

Enji never mentioned it from the utterly mortifying thought of doing so and the ramifications of it, but he could recall the first time he’d threatened Shoto for eating. Endeavor had been unnaturally capricious after downing a few drinks, and as the alcohol settled, he began to reminisce over his early teenage years. During those times, he one day arrived at the realization that he was attracted to both girls and guys. Yet, those around him had instilled in his mind that the only acceptable sexuality was being straight. Thus developed Enji’s own feelings of disgust towards himself for being something even he saw as unacceptable and filthy. He never expressed the side of him he detested for being drawn to other guys, and yet, as his youngest child began to transition into being a young adult, he couldn’t help but feel odd around his son.

Eventually, Endeavor began to realize that he thought his son was beautiful…but that was what made the ordeal so abhorrently disgusting to Endeavor. So, while brooding over his own past, he found himself barking at his son that Shoto was not to eat if he wished not to receive any punishments. Although intended to be stated only once, Enji never did see how many times the same threat had been reiterated. Did he envy his son’s beauty? Oh, he wouldn’t deny that, but what he attempted to deny was the fact that he wanted to deliberately warp that beauty into something filthy. What was beautiful was disgusting, and what was disgusting was beautiful. Yet, to Endeavor, this worked differently than in a dissonant cadence. So, he drank. He drank until he forgot about his own disgusting actions.

“If I say no?” Shoto had questioningly challenged Enji during their conversation at the kotatsu.

“You’re eating,” the Flame Hero assertively sighed. “Shoto, do you have a reason for this?” He raised his brows as Shoto scratched at his arm.

“The blood from the disease.”

Right. The disease that forced Shoto to spit out the truth that he had fallen for not a woman, but a man. To say the least, Endeavor was repulsed, but he was cognizant that denying his son’s right to love another man would likely result in a culmination of self-hatred. Besides, Endeavor was also conscious of the regrettable truth that he could not “correct” himself after all those years, and as such, he saw no point in forcing his son through the same torment that he knew of.

“Sometime today, I expect you to eat,” Endeavor stated, and his son nodded. “Good. Now, I want to ask you again…have you ever self-harmed?” His turquoise eyes slid across a slender wall of indifference.

Shoto shook his head. “No, and I’m not going to show you my limbs.” He noticed as that iron wall wavered. “You’ve had plenty of ‘fun’ with them already.”

Endeavor reluctantly nodded as remorse bit into his tongue. “Very well. Have you ever thought about it?”

Shoto lingered in silence for a moment. “No. It’s pointless—self-harm. Nothing is accomplished. The only thing you’re doing is hurting yourself more. Only a desperate fool would sink so low, and I intend to improve.” His gaze remained fixed upon the kotatsu.

“Are you…happy?”

Ever so slightly did Shoto’s eyes narrow. “I guess you wouldn’t be able to see that I’m happy when I never express it,” Enji’s son whispered, but such frigid words sounded almost lonely. “I have a boyfriend, a privileged life, and everything I need. I’m happy now. What happened before is in the past, like I said. If I wanted to die, I’d have been dead by now. But, if you ask me, dying sounds painful and pointless. I’ll excuse myself now.”

“Wait.” As Shoto instantaneously froze in place, Endeavor expelled a sigh. “Why have you been taking antidepressants? Why do you have scissors and glass stored at your disposal? I’m sorry to have gone through your belongings.”

“It’s…fine,” the younger of the two replied with a thickening layer of steeled insouciance. “The antidepressants were from a while ago, but I didn’t feel like taking the rest. They didn’t feel like they helped. The scissors… I’m fairly certain I had a reason for keeping them there. Ah, right. One of the turtleneck sweaters Fuyumi sent me constantly had new loose strings. But, glass?” He canted his head to the side.

Although Endeavor could recall seeing glass in the drawer of his son’s nightstand, he decided against prying further. “Perhaps I imagined it. You’re dismissed…as long as you eat something today.”

Shoto nodded without meeting Enji’s gaze, and that night, Enji asked his son to sit with him for dinner. The two ate in silence, but after a few minutes, Enji could withstand that silence no longer.

“You’re certain that you’re happy?” Endeavor at last asked, and Shoto simply nodded. “Shoto, look at me.” His son was fleetingly paralyzed before obeying Endeavor’s command. “Is that the truth?”

“Yes. I’m not depressed like I was before. I can’t remember the last time I thought about dying. But I…don’t want to die. I’m happy here.” Perhaps a figment of his imagination, but Endeavor could make out the budding outline of a smile on his son’s lips as Shoto glanced back down to his meal that had been scarcely touched; the mien of the younger of the two twitched. “I’m happy with myself, the people I’ve acquainted myself with, and the accomplishments I’ve made. But I guess I constantly have an unfriendly expression.” Shoto exhaled slowly while looking up from his meal. “I’ve finished. Ah. I’ll train in a bit.” His words lacked total equanimity.

As Shoto stood from the kotatsu, Endeavor shook his head. “Finished? You’ve hardly eaten. You need to eat more than that. Sit down.” He noticed how his son scratched at his arm again while sitting down.

“But…”

“Enough. You’re not leaving until you’ve eaten more than that.”

“I’m…not hungry.” Shoto’s eyes were glued to his hands—they were shaking lightly, but then again, they were constantly shaky.

Endeavor sighed, “You’re too thin to not be hungry.”

“That’s not how it works. And…I’m not that thin.”

“What is this ‘it,’ then? You’ve been losing weight ever since I left. Your clothes are baggy—they fit just fine before.”

Shoto was silent—nonplussed. “Ah…” His hollow eyes drew up from his hands. “I’ll finish it.” His eyes twitched as he reluctantly yet hastily began to eat again.

Enji’s brows furrowed. “What aren’t you telling me, Shoto? Let me hear it.” Immediately, Shoto tensed.

As I’ve prodded more, Enji thought to himself, he seems more on edge. I’m certain…that he’s either lying, or there is something he’s omitting.

What Enji never saw was the past of his son that he’d deliberately forgotten through drinking.

Shoto shook his head. “Nothing.” He swallowed thickly after bringing his chopsticks to his lips.

“You have glaring issues regarding your eating habits,” Enji stated while watching as his son forced down another bite of his dinner.

The heterochromatic boy inhaled deeply before his breath was intercepted by a stifled cough. “I…”

“Take care of it.”

Shoto nodded and swiftly made his way to the bathroom, but soon enough, Endeavor followed. Purely out of concern since his son’s daily aggregation of trips to the bathroom to hack up the flowers he was racked with had been exponentially increasing, Endeavor approached the bathroom to ensure that his son managed to breathe again. What he wasn’t anticipating, however, was the odious sound of gagging and vomiting.

A series of dots were suddenly threaded together in Endeavor’s mind. It all seemingly made sense to him, and he questioned how many clues he’d missed while drunk. He figured that, even if he had erred in unraveling what was afflicting his son, he would greatly prefer that to being blind to the prospect.

Endeavor returned to the kotatsu, and once his son also returned, Endeavor growled, “Show me your hands.” Shoto raised his brows a bit but complied nonetheless—he offered up his quivering palms. “Turn them over,” Endeavor demanded.

“Why? I don’t…trust that.” The tips of Shoto’s fingers curled in a bit.

The Flame Hero couldn’t quite decipher whether or not his son had formulated a convincing excuse or flashed a genuine reaction of fear. “Shoto, I’m sober. I’m asking you to turn over your hands.” Yet, as he examined the palms of Shoto’s hands, he noticed the scars on his left hand.

Shoto visibly bit his lip as he revealed to Endeavor the markings and nicks on his knuckles. Yet, once Endeavor exhibited his vexed reaction to such a pitiable sight, Shoto once again became a phlegmatic student with eyes drained of life and light.

Although expected, Endeavor struggled to fathom the fact that his son had repeatedly shoved his fingers down his own throat to throw up. Ever since Shoto was young, Endeavor wondered how someone so small was capable of consuming so much soba, but the young boy had always been one to clear his plate whenever he ate. Yet, as time progressed, Endeavor failed to realize what his son was doing to himself.

Needless to say, but Endeavor felt the wrath of horrific guilt scorching his blood. He was furious with himself for never having realized the truth. He was disappointed in himself for only then—serendipitously, at that—seeing another issue his son struggled with that heavily impacted his health. He hated himself for allowing such a detrimental issue to transpire and accumulate to the point it had reached.

“Why have you been doing this? To starve yourself?” Frigid fury crunched through Enji’s unwavering words.

Shoto shook his head. “No—”

“Shoto, don’t lie.”

Enji was convinced that Shoto was indubitably attempting to starve himself, but the motive for doing so remained an anomaly to him.

The heterochromatic boy stared down at the floor. “You aren’t the first to think that that’s what I’m doing,” he sighed, and astonishingly, his voice was pervaded by no emotion. “Tch. If that was my goal, I would have been dead many years ago. I was clean for two years until this year. I’m not trying to die. I’m not trying to be thin. Eating appalls me sometimes. It reminds me…of filthy memories, and when I remember those feelings, I can’t eat. Even if I’m hungry, I can’t. Now, I’ve said enough.”

Endeavor was bewildered by his son’s explanation, but even so, he felt as though Shoto’s argument was undermined by the salient details supporting a different argument entirely. “Why are you doing this, then?”

“Didn’t I already tell you? If you want more specificity, then I guess… I don’t know what to say without saying it. I’m not ready to talk about it, so I won’t say it.”

The Flame Hero crossed his arms while nodding. “I expect you to tell me at one point or another. Regardless, this can’t continue. You said you would have been dead ‘years’ ago, so this has been going on for years?” Shoto nodded silently. “Your esophagus will be irreparably damaged if this keeps going. It could possibly encourage another eating disorder.”

Shoto shrugged. “It really doesn’t matter to me. Neither does It. Like I said, I’m fine and I’m happy. Though, I guess ‘fine’ is somewhat contradictory. Overall, fine. I don’t think I have any reason to starve myself. I guess the feeling of eating disgusts me, but I still can’t say why.”

“Shoto, don’t you see ‘what the hell you’re doing to yourself?’”

“I do. The only thing I’m hurting is myself. But, much like being unable to resist the urge to pick up another bottle of alcohol, the urge is deafening and simple to give in to. Just one more drink of alcohol. Just one more skipped meal. It’s a habit. It’s a dependency. It’s…like a disease.” He scratched at his arm. “How f*cked up.”

Frothing, undulating guilt threatens to devour even the acid boiling in Endeavor’s stomach as he finishes reading the lengthy message his son sent to him. Every bullet added to the list of damages he had saddled his son with is a bullet to the back of his skull. His chest sinks with a leaden vice as he promptly heads towards the remote bridge mentioned in Shoto’s text.

Because I drank to forget… Endeavor internally rebukes himself. I regret it. I drank to drown the voices. I drank to give pardon to my wrongs. I drank to numb myself. I drank to drink. I drank to push away my problems. I drank to feel something different than the reality of what I was doing. I drank…and I drank myself an addiction. I regret it. I drank myself a suicide message from my own son. I regret it. Shoto, you were right. Even Heroes need to be saved. That is what you are to me, Shoto. My son…and my Hero.

Yet, Endeavor continues to think, you are a Hero that’s suffering. I failed to see much beyond your wall of lies that you built to appear as being content. If I never chose to drink as a coping method, I might have seen that you were fighting through depression. I might have seen that you were putting blades to your skin to cope. I might have seen that you were struggling with an eating disorder. I might have seen that you were the one that needed the most help. I might have seen that you were suicidal and looking for a way to disappear. I might have seen…but I drank my sight away.

After arriving at the bridge and inquiring as to where his son is, Endeavor peers down at Shoto’s boyfriend—Katsuki Bakugou. He never would have anticipated that his son would find this condescending, vulgar ass to be “perfect,” but he figures that he shouldn’t be one to judge.

Bakugou tempestuously snarls, “About to end his life if you don’t shut the f*ck up and move!” With a fuming lour, he precipitously propels himself into the air with a fulmination of orange and yellow that fractures the sky with blades of light.

Enji lingers behind the stampeding pandemonium of students and their Quirks being activated, and in doing so, Aizawa lingers with him.

“Eraserhead.” The Pro Hero offers the Flame Hero the subtle tilt of his head beneath the shadow of the night. “Was it obvious to your eyes…that he was suffering?”

“I didn’t dwell on his behavior much until I was informed that he had depression and the Hanahaki Disease. However, his behaviors have definitely been more concerning as of late. He avoids making eye contact with me now. Was it obvious to you that he was suffering?”

Endeavor shakes his head while recalling how his son had explicitly stated that his father had raped him. “No, but it is now more than ever. He told me about it all through a text message. I believed the lie that he was fine, but that was a mistake. Do you know if he eats at school?”

I wanted to believe he was fine, Endeavor thinks, but I also wanted to believe that to assuage the guilt for myself. The guilt of being ignorant and unable to see how much I’d hurt him… The guilt of feeding his problems, rubbing salt into the wounds, forgetting about it all, making new wounds, and opening closed wounds… The guilt of the fact that I drove my own son to succumb to all of this…

“Unfortunately, I don’t know about that. That kid…was definitely scarred, though. His eyes might not have reflected it, but if you looked at his reactions and actions, it’s more obvious. Endeavor, did you know that he was present at the scene when Fuyumi died? She was tortured and hanged. He was put under suicide watch at the hospital. Regardless, let’s go. Those kids are fast.”

“I…was there. I-I was there.”

“He did do some horrible sh*t to himself, and that’s your goddamn fault.”

We really are similar, Shoto, Enji ponders. We didn’t want to face reality. We didn’t want to feel reality. We didn’t want to live in reality. I drank, and you cut. To forget. To be numb. For a reprieve. But I didn’t know you tried to take your life. I didn’t know the extremity of what I’d done to you. I didn’t know how much you hated yourself. I didn’t want to believe you brought blades to his skin, that you weren’t happy, or that you wanted to die. Despite how hurt you were, why did you want to save me? Shoto, if it’s not too late… I’m going to save you.

Katsuki Bakugou

You really have a thing for poems, huh, Shoto? I cogitate as Odaiba Beach comes into view. Please f*cking tell me you aren’t here yet… I love your cheesy-ass, beautiful f*ckin’ poems. I love the hands that write them. I love the person the hands belong to. Goddammit, I f*cking love you.

If I could ask for one answer, do you know what I'd say?
Why is the pain in my chest the only thing that won't go away?
If I could wish for one thing, do you know what I'd use that wish for?
I'd wish for someone better than me to be with you and to love you more.
If I could hope for one thing, do you know what my hope would be?
To forget how to see. To hear. To feel. Forget until I'm empty.
If I could plead for one chance, do you know where that chance would go?
I'd be with you forever. I'd like that more than you could ever know.
If I could finish one thing, do you know what I would complete?
Our last kiss that was cut short. It was magnificently sweet.
If I could break one thing, do you know what I would break?
The kindness you gave to me. Don't be so kind to a mistake.
If I could mend one heart, do you know whose I'd mend?
Yours. At the end of the day, yours is the one I truly did rend.
If I could see one thing again, do you know what I'd see?
That smile of yours—the smile that saved me. A smile so deadly.
If I could remember one thing, do you know what I'd recall?
When we began our friendship. Or the day that started it all.
If I could have one more minute...do you know how I'd spend it?
I'd sit with you on the beach where we had our first kiss, staring out into the sunset.
If I could do it all again...do you know who I'd still remain devout to through and through?
I'd pick none other than you.

Someday, I’ll write you my own poem, Shoto. Tch. If you’re f*cking dead…that might happen today. Tomorrow? Sun’s just barely rearing its head. Whatever. Shoto, even though I wanted to be your anchor so you wouldn’t crash yourself and spontaneously combust, I somehow turned you into mine as well. I keep trying to make things better. I keep trying to keep you from tearing yourself apart. I keep trying to give you a f*cking reason to live. So…why the hell are you doing this? That’s what I wanna think, but I know it’s just because I did something wrong. I didn’t do enough. I just…couldn’t be what I wanted to be for you. I wasn’t what I thought I was.

Why didn’t I f*cking realize? And then I hurt you. I hurt us. I made it worse. I keep f*cking telling you it’s all right, it’ll be all right, it’s okay, and just to breathe…because I’ll make it all right. I’ll make it okay. I’ll make it easier for you to breathe. But now you’re trying to breathe water. I gave you empty f*cking promises, apparently. I wanted to make it okay, okay? I tried so f*cking hard…and now you’re my anchor. And now you’re trying to drown in the ocean…if you haven’t already. f*cking hell. I would have f*cking skipped class, ditched school, dropped out, you name it…just to snuggle with you at that beach again. I can’t f*cking do that if you’re f*cking dead! f*ck. f*ck! Shoto, I f*cking need you. So, where the hell are you? Walking? Drowning? Dead? Long dead? Please, Shoto…

My feet splash against the sand as I land on the beach and begin to sprint like the entire f*cking world is against me just to endeavor a search for Todoroki. Deku and a few others from our class arrived before I did, but none of us know where the f*ck Todoroki is. We don’t know if he’s still on his way to the beach—Deku sent out a few to search the city nearby the beach—if he’s at the beach, if he’s drowning as we search, if he’s now dead, or if we’re way too damn late. None of us know, yet we all desperately search.

The sun washes the water, sand, and sky in a pale luminescence, but it’s still difficult to make much out. Even so, we blunder through the agony and the shadows to find the student who’s planned out his suicide here.

Todoroki only allowed a select few to see that, beyond his stoic silence and compassionate will to give aid to those who needed it, all he wanted was to be f*cking tortured to death. Yet, now the obtrusive, filthy, malice-covered truth that he wanted to die stains our messaging history.

How f*cking sh*tty can this world be?

“Kacchan!” shrieks a shrill voice that is none other than Deku as a crackling flash of neon-green jolts overhead.

f*ck, did they find him?! “Out with it!”

A choked, quivering breath causes me to bite my lip and subliminally prepare—yet never properly prepare—myself to hear the truth. “H-He…isn’t breathing. He d-doesn’t have a pulse…”

He doesn’t have a pulse…

“He d-doesn’t have a pulse…”

He doesn’t have a pulse…

“H-He…isn’t breathing.”

He isn’t breathing…

He doesn’t have a pulse…

He’s…

Raindrops of malodorous malignance melt my senses. Flecks of smirking acid burn my bones. Delusion and illusion embrace in the mildewy downpour. Snow. Frost appeases the splintering ground with a splitting stream of snapping tumult.

Don’t.

With shivering palms of compressed fury, I release my hooked fingers and spit out the stale breath corroding my chest. “Show me…”

Deku hands me another poem and another note while silently navigating my torpefied ass to the boyfriend I promised to make all right. I told him it would be okay, and he punctured his arms with scissors. I said I f*cking loved him, and he clawed at his heart with self-hatred. I forced him to say he would want to live again, and now he has no breaths to take, nor any pulse to regulate his body functionality. I promised what I couldn’t live up to, and Shoto Todoroki is now gone.

Why did I give him what he wanted? He wanted to be hurt. I gave him that. Why did I give him something so damn cruel? I don’t care if it put a f*cking smile on his face. Everything about it…is f*cked up. He wanted it—f*cked up. I delivered—f*cked up. He enjoyed it—f*cked up. I’m f*cked up. He’s f*cked up. This relationship is f*cked up. But I f*cking love him. I don’t want to leave him. I don’t want him to leave me…but he’s gone. It’s f*cked up. It’s all so f*cking f*cked up. Who the f*ck would want a story to be the fresh hell that this one’s been? Someone f*cked up. Some f*cking sad*st. Some piece of sh*t that I’d gladly beat the sh*t out of. Tch. Even the stories in the story are f*cked up. And it f*cking hurts like hell. I know there’s someone nefarious enough to stir up a sh*t show like this, and it’s none other than the f*cking traitor that is Reality. Dear Reality, go f*ck yourself. Go f*cking f*ck yourself for f*cking making this f*cking sh*t possible. Why the hell are we hated so f*cking much? It’s f*cked up. Sitting atop this throne of f*cked up things is just that goddamn piece of sh*t known as Reality.

Dashes of sand spritz my legs as I sprint towards the flower meadow of drooping, apprehensive students. Lying supine on the sand is a sleeping figure of dead silence. Endeavor…honestly looks as though his narrowed, flinching eyes are repressing any emotion from falling from them. Beneath the warming wings of light that Ponytail produces from a light at her side, Shoto Todoroki wears a smile as Recovery Girl presses on in her attempt to revive him.

You look so damn content… Who the hell said you could look so f*cking beautiful when you—

“You all right, Bakugou?” Kirishima asks.

I’d bash my f*cking head against something right now if I could. “No. I’m really not. I…f*cking love him. But I-I couldn’t…love him enough. No. I couldn’t love him right. I couldn’t f*cking love him right.” My tears finally flutter from my eyes, but at this point, I don’t give two sh*ts that I’m crying.

Now grasping the note Todoroki left, I read:

Goodbye. I’m ending it all here at the beach because of the pleasant memories I have of being at the beach. Why not taint those splendid memories with my final memories of choosing to die in an excruciating way? I’ve always dreamed of flying. Reality never felt like a home to me. It never felt real. It felt like I belonged someplace else. When I think, I fly. I can leave it all behind and explore the sky. The sky is my canvas. Yet, nothing in the sky is tangible. Whatever I create, I cannot keep. I can only remember it, and that’s enough. Now, I want to finally dive beyond the clouds. Beyond the sky, what is there to discover? With these glass wings of adversity, I’ll fly. Beyond the clouds, I cannot return. Beyond the clouds is the inscrutable profound of the galaxy. I guess the clouds are a gateway. In the galaxy, I’ve no need for any wings. They’ll shatter. How unfortunate. What gave me the privilege to fly now has no meaning. I will never flap those wings again. In the galaxy, I am free to roam, but I cannot return to the atmosphere. I can look down and observe, however. Oh. I wrote more than I thought. Well, with these wings designed to shatter at the zenith of their usefulness, I’ll finally be at home. I’ll finally be free. No more adversity. Simply…free.

Kirishima reassures me as my tears slither down my cheeks, but even though I hear his voice, I hear no words. Ensnared in my damn mind, I’m confined in solitude with my thoughts alone. It makes me wonder if this is how Todoroki feels every f*cking day—trapped, unable to breathe, unable to think or comprehend, lonely to the point of never being alone, driven both to insanity and ataraxy, benumbed but f*cking fragile beyond the surface, in a place that welcomes one in with a cool smile to beat them with lambasting blades of hatred, safe yet so insecure, detached but tethered to reality, comforted by hurt and hurt by comfort…

f*ck my pride. f*ck my ego. f*ck it all. It doesn’t mean a f*cking thing in comparison to him. I want him. I f*cking want him! Shoto, I still wish you'd told me that you wanted to snuggle on the beach. f*ck. I wanna hear you say “snuggle.” We could’ve…been doing that right now. If you could do it all over again, you said you’d still want to be with me. If I could do it all over again, do you know who I’d remain devout to through and through? Shoto, you f*cking know it’s you. But you’re not here. I can see you, but your eyes won’t open. I can hear my memories of you, but you’re dead silent. I can feel you, but I don’t think you can feel anything. I can love you, but you wouldn’t reciprocate in a tangible form. I can talk to you, but I’d never be able to hear you. Shoto…why don't we do it all over again, then?

Chapter 16: Epilogue

Chapter Text

Katsuki Bakugou
- Month 3, Week 2 -

As my voiceless tears seep into the sand at my feet, a gasp rends my current detachment from this world. Tilting my head towards the sound, I watch as Recovery Girl lifts her head from Todoroki’s body.

“He has a pulse.”

Deafening stupefaction holds fast my breaths as my paralyzed body moves on its own. Like a malfunctioning, autonomous machine, my legs wind up, lock, and slide as I peer down at Todoroki. The mere minutes that felt like marbles of decades rattling, clanking, and hammering at the edges of a glass bottle were minutes that I’d spent convincing myself of the worst—that he truly had been deceased. Yet, my throbbing, watering eyes are impregnated with bewilderment at the transparent sight of what is now the minute movements of Todoroki’s chest. Soon enough, with the aid of the ventilator that Todoroki is connected to, I can see his chest rising and falling.

He’s breathing… He has a pulse… He’s…alive. He’s f*cking alive. Asshole… Yet, when—assuming he survives—he wakes up, I don’t wanna f*cking see his reaction to being alive. Goddammit… I know he’s gonna implode. I know he’s gonna want to cut. I know he’s gonna want to try again. If he had died…he would’ve finally been at peace. He wouldn’t be hurting anymore. He wouldn’t have to want to cut, to hate himself, to want to die… Tch.

“B-Bakugou… Why…wasn't it me? Why? Why did…sh-she have—”

“I deserve to die, Bakugou. I deserve to f*cking die…”

“It's my fault that I want to die. f*ck. Sorry.”

He’s alive, but he’s gonna want to die so f*cking much…

Before long, an ambulance arrives, and Todoroki is expeditiously transported to the hospital. After a few hours of restless, exhausted waiting to receive a report on his condition, my voice rolls over itself and coagulates into a convulsing conglomerate once I hear that Shoto Todoroki is in a coma.

While Endeavor and who I presume is Natsuo first visit Todoroki, I press my hand to my forehead and grimace at the ugly, odious, and loathly word “coma.”

I know you’ll pull through—you f*cking have to pull through—but that could be in years! It could be weeks, months, or years. And I can’t do a damn thing. There’s nothing I can bandage to staunch the bleeding of time itself. I can’t do anything to help him. I can’t communicate with him. All I can do…is wait. All I can do is hope he wakes up. All I can do is hope the aftereffects of his attempt aren’t too severe. What if he wakes up…and he doesn’t remember me? Us? Everything we did? That won’t happen. It can’t…

I unfold the poem Todoroki wrote when he was twelve—he wrote down a small note about when he wrote this—and as my eyes slink towards the bottom of the paper, my grip on the thin sheet of a brownish-white tightens.

Five f*cking years ago, and you still wanted to die? You’ve held on for so damn long. There’s a reason for it, Shoto. You’re alive now for a reason. So, don’t you dare try and throw it all away again. You hear me, asshole? Course you don’t hear me. Even if I was right next to you and started to say my thoughts, you wouldn’t know what the hell I’m saying. f*ck. I’m crying again, but I just don’t f*cking care. I told him to cry if he felt like crying. I told him that was okay. Tch. He must've cried so damn much until he was empty. He must've cut so damn much that the pain became numb. He must'vehurtso damn much...to be able to do this to himself.

Nudging my knuckles beneath my eyes to push away my tears, I sigh and open up my photo album from my phone. I tap on one of the photos I asked Aizawa to take while our class embraced each other to embrace Todoroki.

Your f*cking smile… You sure are my princess with that beautiful smile. If only your smiles meant you were happy. Had I just been someone looking at this picture, I would have thought you were happy. I would have thought your life was wonderful. I would have thought: what a lucky f*cking bastard. You’re so damn attractive, too. I would have been so jealous of you. But you have a beautiful smile and an ugly-ass past. You have a beautiful smile that conceals the self-inflicted lacerations littering your body. You have a beautiful smile that hides how much you hate yourself and want to die. Oi. When can I see your smile again, Shoto? When can I see a smile that has nothing to hide?

Eventually, Endeavor and Natsuo return, and whereas Endeavor wears a dour, stoic frown, Natsuo seems to be attempting to suppress the agony of seeing his brother in a coma after a suicide attempt. Endeavor glances at him as if to speak, but Natsuo winces and proceeds to walk off.

I stand from my seat and approach Endeavor with a faint scowl. “So, Endeavor…did you know?” I repeat the final words of one of Todoroki’s poems.

The abusive sack of sh*t known as the Flame Hero shakes his head firmly before offering a terse response. “I didn’t know. That is one of my worst regrets.” He begins to dismiss himself, but he continues uttering, “You’ve kept him here. Thank you.” His saturnine words of raindrops gradually slinking down a window linger as recent memories as we part ways.

What a f*cked up family… I think to myself while plodding towards my boyfriend’s room. I’m f*cking shaking. He was so damn close to being successful. He wasn’t even breathing. He didn’t have a goddamn pulse. He did it. He soared past the f*ckin’ clouds…but his wings didn’t break completely. He’s fallen back. All he wanted was to die, and yet… He really is beloved by adversity, huh? Dithering before sliding open the door to Todoroki’s room, I walk in to see him lying supine in a bed of white with a ventilator obscuring a rounded triangle around his nose and chin. He just looks dead. Sleeping or dead, he’s goddamn gorgeous. But I just…can’t believe it. He was alive. He was going to kill himself. He was dead. He was alive. Now he’s alive, but no one knows when the hell he’s gonna wake up—if he wakes up. You better wake up…

Sitting beside the living, dying angel whose wings of glass have been cracked and partially splintered, I gently entwine his frigid hand with mine. Torpid and silent, the sleeping prince of ice that prefers the epithet of “princess” over “prince” leaves only one salient, visible indication of being alive: his breathing—the steady expansion and contraction of his chest. The yips of the heart rate monitor are languid like his breaths.

“Hey,” I greet him in a husky, crinkled whisper. “Never thought I’d be so f*cking grateful to be able to hold your hand like this. I miss you, Shoto. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since then, but I realized…how damn lonely I am without you. I forgot how lonely everything was before U.A. I didn’t have you. I didn’t have Kiri. I didn’t have anyone in our class but Deku. Even then, I pushed him away. Tch. Oi, Shoto? When you wake up, do ya think you’ll feel tired or energized? Days, weeks, months, and potentially years to me are gonna feel like seconds to you, I’d imagine. But I’ll f*cking wait. I don’t care how long it takes…so you’d better wake up. If you don’t wake up, I’ll kill ya.” While gently caressing the peripheries of his thumb and pinky finger, I glance down at his hand, and I notice that his knuckles have been marked with swollen splotches. “Oi… Sho…”

Now looking back on it, there were a myriad of times when Todoroki dismissed himself to use the bathroom almost immediately after eating. I never thought anything of it. I was aware that there were days he didn’t want to eat anything, but I couldn’t blame him with how f*cking sh*t he sounded whenever he went and hacked up a river of petals—though, I hadn’t known about him coughing up plant matter until the day our entire class witnessed him in the act. He told me about how he’d been coughing up blood, and that was a sufficient answer to me as to why he gradually ate less. Looking back on it, I should have noticed, but I never did. Now that I’m fairly f*cking sure I know, I feel like sh*t for not having realized earlier.

“Babe…I thought you’d tell me everything. Tch. S’ppose that’s hard when you just wanted to speak your past in the order that came to mind. I ain’t mad. I just wanna know why. That’s a different conversation for a different time, Beautiful. So f*cking beautiful… Scars or not, you’re beautiful with or without the sleeves. Goddammit. I wanna see you all flustered from my compliments. The way you can never look me in the eyes, how you turn your head away, when your cheeks are all red, your cute little stutter… It amazes me how damn easily you’re flustered. Hey. When you’re awake, doing better, and out of the hospital, what say we share an ice cream cone just so I can embarrass you? Probably won’t be for a long time…

“The memories of when you woke up in the hospital before still go through my head almost every night. You had so many episodes of just…breaking the broken. I was scared to leave you. So, I’m f*cking terrified of seeing your reaction to being awake and alive, and your reaction to the fact that…we wouldn’t let you die. We forced you to live. But it’s gonna be worth it… I promise that this time, Shoto. It’s gonna be worth it. I’ll wait. I’ll wait until you wake up. I’ll wait until as long as it takes for you to recover. I’ll be there. I’ll f*cking be there, all right? I’m not gonna leave you. I’m…gonna love you right this time. I love you, Shoto Todoroki.”

I firmly grasp his hand while sinking my lips against his forehead, and with that, I return to my home. Alone in the wrinkled waves of morning light wading in puddles of white on the floor, I flick closed the curtain over my blinding window. I sit atop my bed and stare down at my phone—more accurately, the photo I was previously looking at of Todoroki that’s on my phone.

A translucent ribbon of crystalline twists along my cheek. Within a minute, ripened rivulets rush from my eyes. Liquid, glass domes of tears mottle the screen of my phone.

“If we’re so terrible for each other…why the hell do we love each other?”

I don’t have a damn thing to answer my question with, so I slam my wrist against my knee.

“If all we’re doing is building each other to break each other…why do we keep coming back for each other?”

No answer. Another thud.

“If we can’t love ourselves…how can we love each other?”

Although initially planning to rebuke my own query, I shut my trap while literally and figuratively beating myself up.

“If this is what love f*cking does to people…wh-why the f*ck…”

Thud. Soughing strains of soiled sanity strike the air.

“I’m so f*cking sorry.”

“It’s fine, Bakugou. Don’t beat yourself up.”

Now with bruised, aching limbs, I close my eyes and force myself to sleep—it isn’t even noon.

I’ve visited Todoroki as much as humanly f*cking possible for the past six months, but the damn slumbering angel refuses to awaken. Every time I visit him, he looks the same. He’s in the same position, the same bed, and he typically has a regular, rhythmic pulse as his breaths confirm to me that he’s still in there somewhere. Yet, his hair almost touches his shoulders now, and I have to say…he’s a f*cking model with his somewhat grown-out hair.

“Y’know, I wanted to spend my eighteenth birthday on the beach with you, but someone was too sleepy to get out of bed. You better wake up by the time it’s yours… You’d think I’d lose interest, or that my feelings would change, but after about a week of visiting you, I started finding something more about you to love with each visit. I kept finding things I appreciate. Every time I visit you, I leave with another reason to love you. f*cking cheesy, huh? Well, I sure as hell ain’t lyin’, Sho.”

I comb my fingers through his dull, greasy locks of hair while smiling down at him.

“I wonder what you’ll think of your hair. If you’re still sleepin’ your ass off by the time it’s down to your hips, I’ll still wait. Imagine your hair being longer than your f*cking legs. You’d look so damn cute with a long braid. Girly? Who gives a flying f*ck? Something tells me you’d like it, too. Hey, Sho…”

I glance down at him, and my heart is abruptly shot down by a bullet of absolute stupefaction. Retracting my hands from his hair, I stare at his eyes…which are half-open. Although my first thought is that it can’t f*cking be real, Todoroki blinks.

My eyelids peel open as he soon blinks again, and I summon a nurse to succor the sleeping prince.

Oh my f*cking sh*t, he’s awake… Over six months… He f*cking did it. I never thought I’d be so damn proud of someone for waking up, but I’m f*cking ecstatic! Holy sh*t. f*ck, I forgot to breathe. Pfft. Well, didn’t someone sure take my f*cking breath away? After all this…and you’re finally opening your eyes. I haven’t seen your eyes for over half a year, Shoto.

After the nurse performs a few tests and examinations on the wakened angel, she informs me that Todoroki is likely wavering between a minimally conscious state and a vegetative state, and that further examination—and time since the wavering between the two states is likely a part of the recovery process, so one state may become more defined over time—is required to provide a definitive answer.

Inquiring as to what the hell a minimally conscious state and vegetative state are—though, by their names, it’s relatively simple to get the gist of them—I’m provided with the response that: “The vegetative state is essentially when someone is awake, but they lack awareness. They’re incapable of conversing—though, they may randomly vocalize without any outside initiators to this—or following commands. So, if someone in this state were to be asked to say a specific word, they wouldn’t be able to do so or show any signs of having heard the command. Their reactions and movements are typically nonexistent, reflexive, or random. The minimally conscious state, however, is a state in which someone’s awareness is inconsistent but present. They can respond to commands and converse with intelligible words—they can reply to questions with a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and may use words and phrases as verbal responses. If you asked someone in a minimally conscious state to say a specific word, they would be able to say that specific word, but their wavering awareness might prevent them from doing so every time.”

So, he could either be like a plant and not really be able to respond to anything you do to him or command him, or he could have some consciousness in him that lets him meaningfully respond to us, our words, and the environment. Damn… He isn’t guaranteed to make a full recovery, either. f*ck. But…he’s awake. He’s alive. He’s here…to some extent.

While the nurse begins to inform Endeavor of Todoroki being awake, I sit at his side again and watch as he vacantly blinks. His eyes are a bit more open; dull pools of dusky turquoise and gray stare up at the ceiling from his hospital bed. I wave my hand over his face, but he offers absolutely no reaction—not even his eyes track my hand.

“Shoto?” I whisper, but I might as well be talking to a lifelike corpse. “Oi. You remember me?” I tenaciously clutch his hand, and his hand flinches slightly. “You’re still in there… I missed you, Shoto. You better not hide forever, all right?” I furtively kiss his cheek.

But it’s like you’re not there at all. When you were still in a coma, I knew you couldn’t respond, and your eyes were sealed shut. Now that you’re awake and blinking, it just…hurts. I know you’re awake, but you can’t really respond to me. I know you’re not ignoring me, but f*cking hell does my mind wanna convince me you are. Please, Shoto…you can fight through this. It’s f*cking killing me that there’s nothing I can do to help. That I can do nothing to guarantee that you’ll at least be able to function to the point of being somewhat responsive again. That I can’t do anything to bring back your cognitive abilities and previous capacities. All I can do is wait…and hope you’ll come back, even just a tiny f*cking bit. Goddammit… If I never fell asleep that night, would any of this sh*t have happened?

It’s been two weeks since Todoroki opened his eyes, but he just stares at the ceiling, breathes, and blinks. Even though he’s awake, he’s unable to consciously interact with anything. Although arbitrary, he sometimes sighs or shifts his hand a bit; it never ceases to make me think he’s responding to me, and it f*cking chars my soul when I realize he’s still unresponsive.

“Y’know, I talked with that bastard recently. You were right, though. He is so much more f*cking human when he isn’t drunk on an ocean of alcohol. He’s doin’ better, too. Natsuo’s been helpin’ him, but from what I heard, their relationship was hard as hell to mend. Their relationship’s still rocky. But, hey. He asked me about what I knew about…well, all these damn scars. I didn’t say much, but I think I still told him plenty. He told me he asked you multiple times about being happy, if you’d ever self-harmed or thought of it, and some stuff about attempting. Kinda figured you denied and affirmed what wasn’t true. Christ. I hate to f*cking think it, but he really does care. Said he’d been sober for a month straight. f*ckin’ impressive… Wouldn’t ya ag—”

Todoroki’s fingers gently curl inwards a bit. Hopeful anticipation dilates my eyes and accelerates my pulse.

“Sh-Sho?”

No further response.

I push his digits back into their initial position, but he makes no attempt to curl them back again.

Achromatic grandeur causes my body to wilt as I close my eyes and sharply sigh. f*ck. Every f*cking time. I feel f*cking empty whenever that happens. I just…want some indication that you know what’s going on. It f*cking hurts. I want you back to the same Shoto Todoroki I knew…but I know that’s just impossible. I hate not knowing. I hate waiting. I hate all the sh*tty possibilities. But it’s gonna be worth it, right? Please, Shoto…

Four and a half months have passed, and Todoroki is currently in a minimally conscious state. He’s certainly made progress, but it’s f*cking hard to watch someone recover so damn slowly.

Three months ago, Todoroki’s lifeless eyes started to follow the figures in the room when they moved. Shortly thereafter, he seemed to begin to recognize some of the objects being used around him. Although still emotionally unresponsive, he soon responded intelligibly to a question.

“So damn proud of ya… Know that, Sho?” I rested my hand atop his, and his gaze flicked towards me.

I wasn’t expecting him to reply, so I opened my mouth to speak, but instead, Todoroki spoke. “Yeah,” he whispered in a hoarse, hardly audible voice that hadn’t been used in what was approaching a year.

Did he f*cking respond?! “O-Oi… Shoto, do you remember me?” Apprehensive suspense and anticipation split my words and clouded over my mind.

For a few moments, he was silent, and I thought for f*cking sure my mind had been playing some cruel, rigged game on me, but he faintly uttered, “Kat…suki.”

He remembers me… He knows it’s me, Katsuki Bakugou. Holy sh*t. Shoto… Are his memories inviolate, or was I f*cking lucky he remembers me?

Since Todoroki was no longer in need of a ventilator, I could remember watching with immaculate, unimpeded clarity the movements of his lips. I wanted to kiss those lips so f*cking much, but I refrained from doing so.

But I still can’t forget that the reason why you can't function properly…is because you tried to drown yourself. I know you didn’t want this. But I…couldn’t be happier. A few months ago, you were unresponsive to essentially everything. I felt like a ghost around you. Now… Now look at you. I haven’t heard you say my name in so damn long, Shoto. I told you I’d wait…and it’s been f*cking hard. But has it been worth it? Hell. Yes.

However, merely a few days ago, Todoroki finally responded to a command given to him to wave his hand, but as indicated by his state, his command following was inconsistent. There were instances where he was there and aware, but there were also instances where it felt as though he just didn’t care—of course, that wasn’t true.

“Hey, Babe…” I greet him almost six months after his awakening from his coma—about a month after he gave his first response to a command.

Although his eyes still look at me with a perpetual vacancy, he softly replies, “Kat.” His expression remains as a detached, cold frown, but usually, whenever I compliment him, his expression shifts ever so slightly towards something more neutral and affable.

I can’t help but smile at the fact that he’s able to respond to me. “How are ya?” I place my hand beside his, and by his own volition, his fingers slowly begin to weave together with mine.

Funny how f*cking much I appreciate that you can move your fingers, open your mouth and eyes, and be able to speak at all. We really do take it all for granted. I’m so f*cking happy…that he can blink. The simple, involuntary movement is something I’m proud of him for being able to do.

Todoroki doesn’t respond, but I can’t say I blame him—how the f*ck would he feel?

I pull out my phone and show him the class picture Aizawa took that focuses on Todoroki and his ravishing, soft smile. “Recognize these people?” Glancing over my shoulder to study his remote reaction, I widen my smile at how his eyes slightly widen.

Even just the smallest changes in his expression make me so f*cking happy. So f*cking happy… You’ve made so much progress. Even if it’s nowhere near what was your normal, I’m so goddamn grateful…you’re responsive at all. You could’ve been in a coma right now. You could’ve been in a vegetative state. You could’ve made no progress from the day you woke up. But…look atcha now. Your hair’s still growing, too. I think you look stunning.

Todoroki points to the screen. “Who?”

Oh, sh*t. I swallow thickly as my eyes gravitate towards the figure his finger points at, and once I register which person he’s pointing to, I wince. “That’s…Deku. He, Ponytail, and Kirishima visited you a few weeks ago. You don’t remember him? He told you your power is yours and not Endeavor’s. He’s the reason why you started using your fire side again. Always found a way to call ya ‘Todoroki-kun’ to the point where it got annoying. But he’s one of the people that cares about you the most.”

For quite a bit, Todoroki is silent, but he eventually shakes his head a bit. “Not sure.” His eyes squint, yet he stares at nothing. “Todo…chan.”

Oh, yeah, the f*cking nickname Eri gave you. You remember that, but you can’t remember Deku? sh*t. What else can’t you remember?

He points at himself. “Sho…chan.”

“Shocchan?” I restate while also pointing to him.

“Yeah. Shocchan. Not like ‘Todoroki-kun.’ Always...been Shocchan.”

Is it because you don’t want to be further related to Endeavor, or is it mainly the “kun” you don’t like? Or both? Or something else? You did say you’d rather be called a princess than a prince. Wait a minute. Oi, oi… If I’m wrong, that’s kinda embarrassing, but I’d rather that than continue to make him feel weird. I doubt he’d initiate the conversation about it, so…

I gently reinforce my grip on his hand. “Hey. It never crossed my mind, but d’ya want me to use ‘she’ and ‘her’ pronouns for you?” As if expecting him to suddenly stare at me in disgust and confusion, I peer down at our hands rather than at his eyes.

"Yes. Sounds...right," he—well, I suppose she—answers without vacillation. "Right. I'm...not Todoroki-kun. Female. Not male."

Well, what the hell am I, then? Gay, but…straight for you? I don’t f*cking know how the hell that works. But, regardless of who you wanna be, I’ll love you. “Who the hell am I?” Looks like you’re starting to answer that question, Babe. I don’t think you really brought up anything about this kinda stuff until…not too long before the attempt. I can’t f*cking imagine what it musta been like to have Endeavor do all that sh*t. Did Endeavor push your views and feelings after that night? sh*t. How the f*ck is Endeavor gonna take this? Tch. For now, just focus on her. She. Woman. Lady. Girl. Female. Princess.

I plant a tender kiss on her hand. “Well, M’lady, I think that sounds right, too. Always so damn cute. I don’t love ya any less. Shoto, I’m always gonna love and support you. I know you don’t want that, but how the hell do I resist loving someone like you?” With a doting smirk, I chuckle as a faint hue of pink imbues her cheeks with life. “God, I just…can’t stop loving ya, Beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, your name’s beautiful, but would you wanna change it or leave it?” My smirk swiftly dissolves into a genuine smile that I can’t seem to wipe from my face as she replies that “Shoto” is fine.

Eight months since that day have passed, and Todoroki’s progress has been absolutely incredible. She’s been going to physical therapy, and she’s now able to walk on her own. She’s fully receptive to commands, she’s capable of speaking like she once did, and overall, her cognitive functions have been restored. And, finally, now that she’s no longer under suicide watch, she’s being discharged from the hospital after about a year and a half of being confined there.

Four months ago, I decided to ask Todoroki, “Oi, Sho? Do you feel…I guess, happy?”

Big. f*cking. Mistake. She seemed to initially curve her lips to affirm that she was, but motionless silence enveloped the room. Her blank, glacial stare must have terrified the f*cking wall that was unfortunate enough to be what was fortuitously stared at.

“I…forgot,” Todoroki sibilated without oscillation between any emotion. “Is that…why I’m here?” With the empty, languished gaze of a doll, her pupils slid to her hands, and then to her left arm—the arm that looked as though a voracious beast had torn it apart. “I…” Gingerly, she felt across the back of her shoulder. “Why… Why am I… Why…do I…”

I gave her hand a small squeeze while her desperate words of realization raked across my heart like shards of glass. “Sho…because you can be happy. Because you deserve to be happy.” Do not bring up her sister. “I know what your mind wants, but look at how f*cking hard your body fought to keep going. Look at how far you’ve come. Look at how much you’ve been able to heal. Didn’t it feel good…not to have to think about that? Don’t tell me you don’t deserve it…when you fought so hard to get just a taste of it. We’ll get you through this… I promise that this time.”

Guess she wasn’t able to make the connection, despite being able to see Endeavor, her brother, her scars, and everything that should have immediately provoked—if not first her memories—the question of what they meant and why the hell they were there. She forgot how much she wanted to die. What I said must’ve been the trigger to something she forgot. f*ck. With just one question, did I f*ck it all up?

She refused to speak for the rest of my time there that day. Honestly, she looked like a fresh corpse when she wasn’t blinking.

When I asked Todoroki about how Endeavor reacted to her coming out as female, she explained that Endeavor didn’t accept it, but that he would attempt to eventually accept it. Our class, however, supports her. Even though we're currently on break before entering A. University—also known as U.A. backwards for whatever reason—our class still visited her occasionally, and hell was it uplifting to see how damn much they supported her.

Todoroki’s mom is also living with Endeavor again—I have no f*cking idea why the hell such a sweet woman would wanna live with a sack of sh*t, though—and she’s visited Todoroki quite a bit. She wholeheartedly accepts Todoroki, and hell, she even taught me how to braid hair.

Now that Todoroki is free of the hospital, we head to my house with my parents and Todoroki’s parents. While our parents converse in the living room, Todoroki and I slink off to my room. The moment the door closes, however, I eject a sharp sigh.

Everything has been going so damn perfectly—too perfectly.

“So…” I say while sitting atop my bed. “Shoto, what’s wrong?” She sits beside me with her nose pointed towards the floor, and as she does so, I slowly bring her hand into mine.

She offers a glib shake of her head. “Nothing. I’m…happy. I’m finally happy, Kat.” A ponderous, reposeful smile gradually emerges from her lips, but her heterochromatic eyes are cold and devoid of light. “Everything I could have desired, I now have.” Something about her windy voice is somehow designing.

What a sh*tty lie, but I think you know that I know that you’re telling a blatant lie, so why try? “Shoto, I wanna believe you so damn much, but…I can’t. You’ve been actin’ weird for the past few months. What’s up?” I nudge the thin filaments of her hair that sweep across her cheek to behind her ear.

With a brief breath from her nose, she chuckles. “I figured, but I digress. Katsuki…I attempted suicide, didn’t I?”

He isn’t breathing… He doesn’t have a pulse…

“Yeah…you did.”

She grips her left sleeve, and her hand glides with it until a folded ring of fabric rests at her elbow. “I remember…cutting through my arm with scissors. But that wasn’t what happened to cause my specific trip to the hospital. So, I tried again? How…did I try to die this time?” Her forefinger traces along a massive, serpentine scar that winds from her wrist to about halfway up her forearm.

Nonplussed, I shift my position. “You…tried to drown yourself. Shoto—”

Her uncanny smile and dull eyes grind together her flat voice as she murmurs, “I don’t remember that. It doesn’t sound the slightest bit familiar, but I trust your veracity. When I remembered that I wanted to die, I remembered burning that desire into my mind. I don’t have a reason to want to die anymore, but…I still want to die. I’m sure you thought what I recently told you about my happiness to be bullsh*t…” Her brows twitch as she pauses, but she shakes her head as springs of diamond wash her cheeks with silver. “You’re right. But…I’m not sad, so why am I crying? I’m not happy, so why am I smiling? I don’t know. I don’t know… It kills me not to know, you know? Ah…” She scrunches her eyes closed. “That sounds familiar. I just can’t remember.”

I’m pretty sure one of your main reasons for wanting to die turned into your blaming yourself for your sister’s death. Do you not remember her? What happened then? But I can only f*cking try to imagine. I know you didn’t wanna feel anything, and it looked like you were starting to slowly numb yourself, but now, I don’t know.

“Do you feel anything right now?”

“Aside from one thing, not particularly. I love you, Katsuki. I remember that. I love you…more than I should. I’m yours and you’re mine. It’s an odd feeling. Without you, I just feel empty. Whenever you left the hospital, I kept thinking about you. I conjured up imaginative conversations with you. But when I stopped thinking about you, I was torpefied.” Now glancing over at her, my eyebrows fidget at the sight of her wide, unblinking eyes; abruptly, they return to normal. “I don’t have a reason to want to die. I hurt you a lot because I tried to die. So…I want to get better.” A foreboding emanation stains her crooked voice.

Am I… really speaking to the same Shoto? I didn’t realize how damn significant I am to her. Holy sh*t. But something doesn’t sit right. Something…feels so f*cking off, but I don’t know what it is. Before this all, she woulda stressed the sh*t out of her not deserving to get better and not deserving to be alive. Now, because of me, she wants to get better? I got a f*cking chill that rattled my spine. Tch. Don’t think much of it. She doesn’t even remember going to the ocean and trying to drown herself. She remembers bits and pieces of Deku, but far from everything. Still…

I lift her from sitting beside me to sitting in my lap. “We’ll getcha better,” I reassure her as I loosely embrace her. “I promise…” As she tilts her head to look at me, I fasten my lips with hers. “Mm…”

“Mmhm,” she jubilantly hums.

Another damn chill, but this time, I promise, Shocchan. Who the hell said it’s legal to be as cute as you? But I wanna ask about your being a girl.

Once our lips slide back, I mentally prepare myself to ask her about my question, but she swivels and takes my lips hostage while firmly pinning me to the bed.

What the sh*t is this f*ckin’ hot horse sh*t she’s pullin’?! I thread our fingers together as her hair lightly dusts my cheeks, but rather than resisting her, I tug her down into an embrace without separating our lips. Does she remember that night we had? f*ck. Too many questions and too much of her cute, hot ass.

I finally tilt my head to catch my breath, and upon peering up at the eerie sight of my girlfriend’s uncanny smile, my expression slightly scrunches. “Oi. Sho, if you remember and yer comfortable with saying…what’s the main thing driving the transition? You never talked about it.” As she snuggles her chin against my chest, I twirl a strand of her hair around my index finger.

“As time carried on, I formed an aggregation of reasons to hate myself, but as my father began to touch me, I found that I was disgusted with myself, my body, and the fact that I would one day become a man…like him. How he seemed to be interested in…what made me a male. It felt wrong to have what he was looking for. It felt wrong to be in my own body. But I never thought about transitioning. Then…I heard more and more feminine names and the like that had been directed at me, and it felt right. I wasn’t uncomfortable with them. I liked them. As I heard those more, hearing the masculine pronouns made me uncomfortable. They reminded me that I’m a guy. I’m a boy. I’m a man. I’m male. That isn’t who I am. I guess…I also stayed my tongue because I felt like I deserved to suffer as someone I wasn’t. But I kept wondering who the hell I was. Now…I’m not the same person as I was when I attempted again.

“That didn’t answer your question, though. Sorry. It was when Endeavor raped me. I wanted to be normal after it happened. I wanted to act like nothing happened. I wanted to feel like it never happened… The past fetters me down, but it isn’t as though I can escape. All I can do is accept it and move on. I finally allowed myself to accept that who I am is not who I was. I was forcing myself to be someone I wasn’t, and now that I’ve had the time to think about it, I know that I identify as a female.” Todoroki inhales leisurely yet deeply. “Yet, I feel as though my reason for identifying as one is simply invalid.” Her fragile, empty eyes roll up to meet my gaze.

“Sho…there are inevitably gonna be people who don’t agree with this, but f*ck them.” I now begin to braid a thin pool of resplendent red that previously hugged Todoroki’s cheek. “Seriously. Who the hell said we have to be whoever we were born as? That that’s always gonna be who we are and what defines us? Probably some assholes that wanted to keep their statuses all high and mighty.” She offers me an empty smile before traipsing the side of her head along my chest until her ear rests over my heart. “Babe, you shouldn’t have to be uncomfortable with just being in your own skin. Even if the world were to tell you your reasoning is invalid and that you are as well, I’d never think the same. I’d f*cking tear them apart before they could even look at you, you beautiful little f*cker.”

She chuckles, but even her voice is empty. “Thank you, Love. I truly do appreciate it. Ah… I… Sorry. I thought I wanted to say more. I do, but I don’t…know what to say.” The pleasantly cool tips of her fingers prowl around my neck as her countenance is eroded by jagged quietude.

Another f*cking chill… “You all right, Sho? You don’t usually talk this much. I mean, I’ll gladly hear out anything you wanna say, but it ain’t like you.”

Her fingers curl into her left sleeve. “Yeah, I’m all right,” she whispers while pulling herself up against me so she sits upright against my chest. “I’ll return shortly.” She slides off of my chest and allows me to sit beside her.

Consternation coils around my chest as Todoroki walks ungainly towards the bathroom. You’re not all right…and I’m the one to blame. You were happy, Shoto. You didn’t remember your attempt, and nor did you remember how much you wanted to die. There was something you forgot that I triggered the reawakening of, and that savaged your mental health. I threw your happiness away by accident… Grimacing, I exhale slowly and decide to distract myself from beating my limbs against each other by pulling out my phone. Y’know, I can see why you were so close with Ponytail. She f*cking noticed something was wrong before Deku did, and she was hella nice about it, but she didn’t make me feel like a weak piece of sh*t.

While scrolling through my photo album without fully retaining what the hell I’m actually looking at, my old hag texts me that dinner is ready. Well, this is gonna be an awkward-ass dinner. Tch. I hope she’s comfortable enough. I land on a picture in my album of Todoroki slurping some soba with her chopsticks. Looking back, how did things end up this way? How did this love become so damn dangerous? What happened to us? What did we do? We went from close-ass friends that positively influenced each other…to self-destructive lovers. We hurt ourselves and each other. To make each other better, we destroyed ourselves. To make ourselves better, we destroyed each other. What kind of f*cking love was that?

Once Todoroki steps out of the bathroom, I inform her that dinner’s ready, but she shakes her head and presses her back against the wall. As I gingerly approach her, she slinks down to the floor and clutches her hair. I gently maneuver her hands into mine.

“Oi… What’s goin’ on, Sho?” I kneel beside her and hug my shoulder against her trembling shoulder.

Despite her leaden breaths and shaking body, not a damn vestige of emotion dares scathe her blank-slate mien. “Please…keep talking to me,” she forces herself to utter through her strained whisper.

No matter how much I want to believe this is the same Shoto Todoroki I knew, she’s…just not the same—as expected, but it still hurts. “‘Course I can do that, Shocchan.” I steadily inhale and exhale for a moment. “But would you be comfortable with sayin’ what’s goin’ on? I wanna help ya. It’s all right.”

She nods as her digits tuck in towards her palms. "I maundered for a while...in an attempt to suffocate my thoughts,” she whispers before wincing. “I want to die. I can't stop thinking about that now. I keep thinking...about how easy it is. Why do I still want to die? Regardless of what I think about, my mind corrects my thoughts to impaling my arms with something sharp, overdosing, drowning again, hanging myself, I... I want to f*cking try again.” Her empty eyes twitch. “Katsuki, I want to make another attempt to end it all. So badly... After all this...and I just want to die.” Her right hand tugs away from my grasp, and I deduce that she’s going to scratch the sh*t out of her arm, so I firmly hold both of her hands.

I will stay up all f*cking night just to make sure you’re okay, Shoto, I think to myself while Todoroki begins to cant her head against my shoulder. I’m…not gonna let you try again. Don’t you dare trample the f*cking year and a half it took you…just to get out of the hospital. The six months you were in a coma for... The entire rehab. process… Dealing with lost memories, recovered feelings without emotions to accompany them, more self-destructive and suicidal thoughts, the beginning of your transition, at last figuring out part of who you are, finally wanting to be okay and happy, and finally wanting to try to want to live again… Babe, you’ve been slowly making progress. Don’t you f*cking dare throw it away. But I’m not gonna hurt you this time. To make you happy, I’m gonna do what’s right. It’s gonna be okay.

“Every time something loathly is dredged up from my memories,” she continues, “it's as though I've been struck by a bullet. In episodes like these, there's a barrage of bullets that augment my desire to die. I can see the wounds. I can see the blood. I can see the bullets. But I can't see where they're coming from, the one issuing the assault, or why I've twice become the target. But no one else can see the wounds. No one else can see the blood. No one else can see the bullets. No one can hear my screams. No one can see me crawling with a f*cking noose around my neck as a leash. It's...just a war in my head. I want to get better, Katsuki. I…want to be happy. But there's an itch. A ceaseless itch plagues my mind. I feel like I've gone insane. I want to die, but I don't know why. My emotions are numb, but my love for you is undying. Because of you, I finally want to want to live again, but I... Katsuki, help... P-Please...f*cking help me."

Ensuring that my breaths are deep but not heavy, I reply, “I’m right here, so how can I help? I’ll do whatever I can, Shocchan.” I nod slowly in affirmation.

Her ghastly eyes of turquoise and gray stare without seeing—like they’re open yet not able to function. "Hearing your voice and feeling you beside me succors in assuaging this...this interminable minefield of self-destruction." Her left hand flinches and tenses to the point of shaking.

As I open my mouth to speak, a knock arrives at my door moments before my mom enters the room. I wave her off and proceed to say, “Well, y'know how you said you wanted to snuggle on the beach? Before we go back to school, why don't we do that? Just the two of us. It's all right, Shocchan... Slowly, it's gonna get better. One day, you're gonna be happy. I ain't leavin' your side, Babe. I love you..." I massage her quivering digits with tender ardor while beginning to softly hum a song to her.

My beautiful, adorable, tormented girlfriend nuzzles her head against my chest while tightly wrapping her arms around my torso. Her shoulders gently rise and fall with her breaths, and my hands gently stroke and pat her hair to my mellow humming.

I wish I woulda had moments like this with you before, I inwardly sigh while my fingers continue to unconsciously meander through the half-hot, half-cold meadow of Todoroki’s hair. This is what I should’ve done… But what did I do? I hurt you. I told you I wanted to help you, but that it hurt because you just kept reinforcing your sh*tty habits. What a f*cking hypocrite I am. I’m gonna do this right this time…before I lose you. Before something happens that I could’ve prevented, I’m gonna do this right. Before I’m unable to feel your hand in mine…I’m gonna do this right, Shoto Todoroki.

After roughly twenty minutes of whispering motions and soft notes swimming in a swaying sea of silence, Todoroki lifts her head. “Thanks, Kat…” she says with pedestrian verve as a cunning, cute, crescent-shaped smile curves on her lips. “Sometimes…” she chuckles as her matte eyes suddenly seem as though they’ve become full and intoxicated with an injection of wry, vivacious life. “Sometimes, I wish I could show you just how much I love you, Katsuki…” Effervescent ardor crackles from her sweet, soft, creaking words.

Sweet as that is to hear from you…something sounds off, and I can’t put my damn finger on it.

Once we finally sit down for dinner, Rei sits beside her daughter. “How are you doing, Shoto?” she inquires with an amiable smile.

Todoroki nods with the remnants of a smile hanging on her lips. “Better. How are—”

Endeavor hauls his ass into the picture. “Shoto, why don’t we schedule a hair appointment for you?” He glances at Todoroki’s shoulder-length hair.

Rei’s serene eyes of silver seem almost to smile at Todoroki’s hair. “I think it suits her well. What do you think, Katsuki?” Her long lashes blink in my direction, and damn—no wonder Todoroki’s eyes are naturally sublime.

My lips pull into a smirk at the demure Todoroki. “I think she’s absolutely adorable,” I snicker as a mellow veil of peach flutters down onto her cheeks. “Hairstyles and hair lengths aren't limited to one gender, either. f*ck stereotypes. I say that if you want short hair, go for it. Long hair, go for it. No hair, go for it. Anything ya want, as long as you’re comfortable with it.”

Todoroki’s sheepish smile seems almost to be permeated by subdued loneliness. “Thanks, Kat. I like having longer hair.” She espies Endeavor with plastic webs of emotion being strung through her dull eyes.

The Flame Hero sighs. “I will accept that…under one condition.” His expression darkens with grim shadows as his eyes narrow. “Shoto, I want you to eat now.” The sizzling intensity of his grim stare simmers as he crosses his arms and grins.

f*cking hell, I internally groan. That goddamn bastard scared the sh*t out of me.

Todoroki tucks a filament of vermillion behind her ear. “Ah. All right.” She weaves her chopsticks into her hand and plucks a piece of sushi from her dish. “I’ll try.”

“Don’t push yourself, Sho,” I reassure her while providing a small smirk. “Already lookin’ so damn perfect.”

“Katsuki, what have I told you about that sailor mouth of yours when we have guests?” my old hag shouts from the nearby kitchen.

“Yeah, yeah,” I sigh.

Todoroki’s blushing face necessitates a smile to melt through my smirk. “I don’t think you’ve looked into a mirror lately, then.” She grins at me, but something within that grin almost seems to crawl.

A month since then has passed, and Todoroki has been working her damn ass off to cram in a year’s worth of schooling in merely a few months. It’s been one hell of an emotional slap to the face, but Todoroki is still here. Even though there are nights when neither of us sleep because of Todoroki’s crippling thoughts of going through another attempt, she’s allowed herself to ask for help—thank f*ck, because I’m almost positive that she’d be dead by now if she never voiced her thoughts. She’s also endured the aftermath of an incident involving glass; it might as well be considered as an attempt from how absurdly deep she managed to slash into her left forearm not once, not twice, not even three damn times, but six times.

Vzz! Vzzzzt! Vzz! Vzzz!

Inclined to believe that the growling purr of my phone was my alarm, I begrudgingly silenced the vibrations before picking up my phone to determine whether or not I should’ve turned off my alarm or slept for another few minutes. Yet, the moment I read Todoroki’s name on my screen, I snapped myself into an upright position and rubbed my eyes while swiftly accepting her call.

sh*t, it’s four in the goddamn morning. What happened? Is she oka—

Her silky, dull voice enraptured my full attention. “Katsuki, I f*cked up,” she sighed, yet there was no undertone of exasperation, fear, panic, or anything in her voice. “I’m fine now, but I thought I’d scratch my arm with glass a bit to quell this damn urge. Putting it candidly, I almost watched myself bleed out. It didn’t even hurt. It didn’t feel good. It didn’t help me. But I couldn’t stop. My mind wanted it, and I gave in. It was so addictive…but I couldn’t feel anything but that addictiveness. I trained myself to crave it, regardless of the effects.” She paused for a moment. “I was going to let myself bleed out because I just didn’t have the motivation to do anything about the cuts, but I realized that would be it—I’d be dead. I passed out from the blood loss after taking care of the wounds. But I just…don’t care right now. All I feel is an incision of emptiness in my chest, and an inferno of itchiness in my head.

“It’s so easy to die, yet so difficult. I couldn’t die when I wanted to, but now that I’m trying to find my way out of being suicidal, I was so close to letting myself die. I still think about the attempt that I can’t remember. I just wouldn’t die, would I? I’m sure it hurt yet felt so wonderful. I know why you all kept me alive, but I still wonder if it’s going to be worth the effort and the wait. I…almost threw it all away by accident.” I threw your happiness away by accident. “What if, one day, I’m unintentionally successful? What would it all have been for? Sorry. I keep talking…but when it’s silent, I hear voices. When I can’t hear your voice, I imagine it and remember some of the things you’ve said to me. I need… Ah.” She trails off for a moment. “I need some sleep, but I don’t want to sleep.”

For the remainder of the night, I spoke with her over the phone. Her “I don’t give a f*ck” insouciance honestly evinced immense trepidation on my end—I didn’t know if she was gonna suddenly snap and implode.

I visited the Todoroki residence later that day. When I arrived, her eyes seemed drained, her posture was lacking, and her countenance was desolate. We silently advanced to her room, and once we stood there in silence, she rolled up her left sleeve.

Fsst.

A snowflake of scars had been horrifically gouged, stitched, and cauterized on her arm. To the right of that snowflake had been two gashes that received the same treatment as her other self-inflicted lacerations.

“Aren’t you exhausted from hearing how many times I’ve relapsed?” she sighed while I insidiously digested the sight before me. “I cut again. I want to try again. I didn’t eat again. I purged again. I lied again. I didn’t take the meds again. Again, again, again. Isn’t it exhausting to be with me?”

“Not one f*cking bit.” I lifted her chin with my hand and gazed into her vacant eyes. “Babe, I love you, and I want nothing more than to see you be happy again. You’re getting there… I’ll wait for however long it takes, and I’ll be helping you—whether or not you want it—as much as I can.”

She plastered on a smile that she knew that I knew was evidently feigned. “I love you more. I’m going to be happy. I’m going to want to live again. I’m going to do this…” Her words dissolved into silence, and as I opened my mouth to speak, her lips ensconced mine with perplexing brio for how arid she’d been in all her behaviors.

I guided her back towards the wall as the ferocity of our kiss clawed higher along a mountain of desire, but rather than pinning her back, she pinned me. As if that wasn’t hot enough, the eventual separation of our warm, wet lips provoked a gravelly, “You’re mine…”

I snickered, “And you’re mine.”

As of right now, though, Todoroki is alive, and she sits beside me beneath a sea of gilded shards that flitter and dance upon being reflected down to the sleek ribbons of topaz and cerulean that curl towards the sandy shore. Resting in her waving locks of hair is a flower crown that I crowned her with shortly after being taught how to make one from Rei.

Todoroki’s capricious emotional state has oscillated between being empty and numb with an array of plastic emotion, and being filled with a kind of mirth that manages to make her both inscrutable and eerily calm to such an extent that it feels as though, beneath the surface, that calmness is gasoline waiting to be ignited. She’s been eating somewhat regularly, but I’m f*cking happy that it’s been of her own volition to eat. She’s also begun further Quirk and physical training under Endeavor, but someone is always present to provide her a bit of comfort and ensure that Endeavor’s training is humane. Yet, she’s still saddled with a seemingly perpetual longing to erase her existence from this world.

f*cking hell, you are so f*cking beautiful, Shoto. Someday, you’re gonna be happy, too. I’m helping you walk to reach your happiness, but ultimately, you’re the one actually moving forwards. Even if you still relapse, it’s okay, Shoto. Even if you tell me you’ve f*cked up and cut like you did before, I’m not gonna leave you. Even if you call me at some ungodly hour because you’re fighting the urge to attempt suicide again, I’m not gonna be exhausted of you. Even if you don’t eat, I’m not gonna be upset in any way with you. Even if you force yourself to throw up, I’m not gonna be disgusted by you. Even if you lie to me, I’m not gonna hate you. Even if you deliberately choose not to take your pills, I’m not gonna hurt you. Shoto, even if you try again, and even if you end up in another coma because of it, I’m still gonna hold your hand and wait for you. I don’t care if I’m f*cking old and crippled—I’ll wait.

Now that we’re together again like this, I’m going to love you right. I was such an asshole before. I did so many f*cked up things. I literally told you…you were better off dead. Just because I wanted to see your genuine smile, I told you you were weak and disgusting. I made you hurt me to try and make you see, but really, I was the blind one. I hurt you because that was all you wanted. I hurt you because I thought it would make you happy, and then I’d be happy because of your happiness. I hurt you because you were desperately begging me to hurt you, to torture you, to f*cking torture you to death… All I did was hurt you more. All I did was hurt myself. All I did was break us both. All I did was reinforce our sh*tty habits. All I did was write for you what you saw as some kinda validation for killing yourself. All I did…was turn this love into a poison. All we did was hurt each other. All we did was hate ourselves. All we did was love each other, and look where that got us.

That sh*tty love is gone. Consider this the new chapter of a new story…or the epilogue of our original. We ain’t done yet, Beautiful. Nah. This is the end of the beginning. We’re gonna do this right, Shoto. If Reality wants to f*ck with us, well, f*ck Reality. Our reality is whatever we want it to be. Hear me, you piece of sh*t? I don’t f*cking care what Reality has in store for us…because I promised you a good life, Sho. I’m making that our reality. ‘No matter what happens, please stay alive.’ Weird. That seems f*ckin’ familiar. Lemme adjust it… No matter what happens, I’ll be by your side.

With a smile, I curl my arm around Todoroki’s back to nudge her twilight-kissed form closer to me. “You enjoyin’ this, Shocchan?” I cant my gaze to absorb her heterochromatic eyes that have been polished with a luscious sheen of a semi-translucent saffron.

Her honeyed smile emerges. “I am. Something is so familiar about this beach. I like it. Why this beach, though?”

“I confessed to your cute ass here. Do you…not remember?” I nuzzle my head against hers as she leans against me.

“I don’t… Maybe I’ll remember with time. But, Katsuki…thank you for making this possible. Thank you for keeping me alive. Thank you for never leaving my side. I love you, Kat. I love you.” Her grin fidgets as it expands.

“I love you so much more, asshole,” I chuckle while readjusting her flower crown. “I waited half a year for you to wake your sleepy ass up.” As the fizzling breath of the ocean ebbs back and forth through my ears, I snuggle against Todoroki; her frosty, fresh scent is suffused by the saltiness of the twilight-soaked air.

She places my hand over her heart, and holy sh*t is that thing livid as it pounds at her chest. “I love you…so much more than you can fathom, Katsuki…”

[To be continued in: Scars of Love | Suicidal Yandere Todoroki x Bakugou]

Chapter 17: Alternate Ending

Chapter Text

Katsuki Bakugou
- Month 3, Week 2 -

Shoto…why don't we do it all over again, then? Just you and me…snuggled up at the beach. Free from this world, this pain, this constant struggle, we can do it all over again. No abuse, no self-destruction, no alcohol, no one to stop us from being ourselves. Hey. You think you’d smile more often? Do you think you’d laugh? Do you think you’d be happy? Happy… I fought so f*cking hard to try and make you happy, and I did all the wrong goddamn things to try and make it happen. How I tried to make you happy was like…feeding you poison when you wanted a lethal one that was a surefire way of killing you. It’s f*cked up. The price of happiness is your life—everything you are. Tell me, Shoto…is it worth it?

I watch as Recovery Girl desperately attempts to bring Todoroki back to this world. Like yanking the leash of an animal desiring nothing more than to be free of its master, Recovery Girl pushes on his chest in rhythmic, harsh movements.

Ponytail’s eyes leak with a silver liquid as she stares at the friend of hers whose heart and mind have become perpetually still. She audibly sniffles, and yet she still stands with a certain equanimity that I can imagine will shatter if Todoroki finally leaves this world behind to observe from above.

He’s…not gonna make it. He’s f*cking dead. He did it. He drowned himself. He tortured himself to death. He committed suicide. He flew and had no plans to return here. f*ck. Shoto, was there anything I could have done or said to prevent this? Why… Why now? You said you didn’t wanna f*cking leave me, but you’re never going to be able to open your eyes again. Sho, I don’t know if I can forgive you. What a f*cking dick play. What an offensive f*cking choice. What a f*cking way…to make me f*cking hate you without hating you. I could never hate you, but I hate… Shoto, I hate the fact that you chose to do this! I know you wanted to die! I know what you wanted! I know! But I didn’t know…you’d f*cking stab me in the back. But I still love you. I still want you. Shoto, I still need you.

Moments later, the jagged movements from Recovery Girl cease. With her head hung low and a grim expression slicked over her face, she steps back from Todoroki’s body and shakes her head.

Even though I knew you were dead, it hurts, Shoto. We… We got our class to form a search party, and we found you. We found you too late. We found a body. We found a humanoid lump of flesh without a pulse or any breaths. Your damn old man’s here, and he’s kneeling right beside you. Teach is here, and he’s comforting Ponytail. Recovery Girl’s here, and she gets to deal with the f*cking grief of not being able to bring you back here. Shoto, please f*cking tell me… What could I have done right to have prevented this? To still be sleeping in your arms while dreaming about your smile? Goddammit, tell me. Even if you told me, I’d never be able to hear you. So…

“Bakugou, I’m so sorry…” Kirishima sniffles as the droning of sirens seep into the air from the distance.

I don’t want to f*cking believe this is true. “Save the sympathy,” I murmur while my brittle legs bend and my knees crack on the dim, grayish sand. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

An ashen smog pervades my mind. The smoky tendrils wriggle into the unoccupied pools of empty space and infuse with my mind itself. My senses are suffocated. My awareness is strangled. My mind is drowned. Everything is infected by that ashen smog. Everything belongs to that ashen smog. Everything is nothing, and nothing is everything.

I don’t wanna hear it. I don’t wanna feel it. I don’t wanna face it. I don’t wanna f*cking be alone again. I don’t wanna leave you. I don’t want you to leave me. I’m on my f*cking own. No matter how many goddamn people are beside me, I’m alone. Don’t leave me… Wait. Shoto, don’t f*cking go… Please. For f*ck’s sake! Shoto, don’t… Shoto, wait… Shoto, please…

Heatless, intangible arms wrap around my torso. A frigid, transparent hand rests over my heart, and for a transient moment, the bucking beast of fulminating emotion is minimally placated. A fading voice sighs, “I haven’t left you.”

I know you haven’t f*cking left me, but I don’t even have a palpable… I’m having a whole-ass conversation with myself. I just want you to f*cking be here in a form I can communicate with and feel. I can still feel…that hug you gave me last night. Last night… Just last night. You were here last night. In just one night…our future was beaten to death. Why, Shoto? How does this make me happier? How is this fighting for my happiness? How, Shoto? Shoto, I’m sad. I’m f*cking sobbing. I want to slam my goddamn head against a f*cking jagged rock. It hurts. It hurts so much, Shoto. It hurts so f*cking much! I’m sure it’s only a fraction of what you felt, but I’m f*cking weak! I’m f*cking vulnerable as all hell! I’m f*cking afraid! I’m not used to the pain. I’m not numb to my feelings. I’m not…able to smile it off and act like it’s all fine.

Shoto, I might’ve acted like I was strong, but that was because I wanted to help you. You were crumbling, so I wanted to be your sturdy base. But I wasn’t sturdy at all. I caved in, and now you’re gone. I’m a f*cking disappointment, aren’t I, Shoto? I wanted to hold you up and keep you from killing yourself, but in the end, all I did was postpone the horrible f*cking inevitable. I made you suffer. Because I kept you in this sh*tty world, you watched as your sister was tortured and hanged in front of you. I…augmented your desire for pain so f*cking much that you wanted me to torture you to death. What the f*ck? I’m so f*cking sorry.

Even after we all return to U.A., I still just can’t f*cking fathom a single damn thing. Yet, I nod at the future.

Deku accompanies me as I drag myself to my dorm—there’s no way in hell I’m prepared to return to my own home—without being fully conscious of what I’m actually doing. Once I arrive at my dorm, I brusquely bat Deku’s existence from infiltrating my mind, but he’s dogged in his pursuit.

“K-Kacchan, I know it’s best to give you some time alone, but I’m just worried…” Deku whines as I twist the handle of the door to my dorm.

Don’t reveal it. “I’m not gonna do anything stupid,” I sibilate before slipping into my dorm and locking the door.

The moment that the door ejects a click from being locked, I press my back to the door and drip down to the floor. Flames flood through my head as I repress the sobs licking at the inner peripheries of my lips.

It’s like I can f*cking feel you sitting right beside me, I think while cupping my hand against the floor as though Todoroki’s hand is beneath mine. But you’re not here. You’re not here, and you never will be. God, I can f*cking feel you, I f*cking swear! But I know it’s just my goddamn mind wanting to believe the idyllic option. I can feel your head on my shoulder, your arms wrapping me into a snug embrace, your hands massaging my back and shoulder, your breaths against my neck, your chest rising and falling against my arm and side… But I open my eyes, and you’re nowhere to be found.

As I grit my teeth, I force myself up to my feet as the lulling warmth of the false sensation of Todoroki’s palpable body cradling my body fizzles out.

The hell do I have that could possibly be useful to me? I don’t f*cking know. I don’t f*cking care how selfish it is, either. Don’t think about the consequences. Move. It won’t matter. Tch. Weak, selfish, and sh*tty through and through. But I don’t care anymore. I just…want to be with you. That’s how f*cking f*cked up this ended up. Sho, I’m gonna find you. Whatever you think about my choice…I’m gonna go through with this.

Impetuously scouring my dorm for anything that briskly enraptures my attention, I furrow my brows at the glass cup resting on my bedside table.

Glass and scissors—your preferred blades. Where the hell did you even get scissors as f*cking sharp as the ones you have? Like, holy sh*t. But glass works perfectly f*cking fine. Tch. I’ve never cut like a f*cking maniac before, but that sounds better than making it slow and painful.

I glimpse at my distorted reflection in the glass before slamming it to the floor and watching as the cup erupts into shimmering, sharp shards of translucent glass. Plucking the larger shards from the floor, I cradle them in my palm, but once I’ve gathered the majority of the convenient shards, I smash my fingers into the glass.

“Open your fist.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s f*cking… Todoroki. Because I’m asking you to.”

“f*ck, ow!” I inveigh, but I nonetheless remove a fragment of glass from my palm that boils with my writhing blood; I thrust the intricate shard at my wrist, but the shard fails to even graze my damn skin. “f*cking hell. I’m f-f*cking shaking. I’m terrified. Goddammit, just f*cking cut…. Cut, Katsuki!” I swing the translucent blade again and slash it over my wrist, but once again, not even my skin is grazed. “f*ck! For f*ck’s sake! Katsuki, you f*cking coward!” Finally, with quivering conviction, I rake the serrated glass shard through my palm, wrist, and through about a fifth of my forearm. “It doesn’t even hurt? The hell, it isn’t bleeding, ei—never f*cking mind. Do it again, Katsuki. Don’t be a f*cking wuss.” I bolt my jaw shut, and with a rush of bitter, burning adrenaline, I scratch at my arm with the glass rather than my intended gashes.

How the f*cking sh*t does Shoto do this sh*t so effortlessly?! How many f*cking times has he done this to be numb to this goddamn fear, reflexive halting, hesitation… Tch. I think that like he’s still here. He’s gone. He’s f*cking dead, and I’m gonna join him.

Now transferring the bloodied blade of glass to my left hand, I wince and grit my teeth as I eventually manage to repeat the same process of self-mutilation to my right arm.

Kinda f*cking burns now, but I think looking at the wounds is more painful than inflicting them when my adrenaline’s livid. My vision’s sh*t. I’m really gonna f*cking die… Goddammit, and my last words to be heard by someone other than myself ended up making a big-ass lie. f*ck. Now my parents have to deal with this. My entire class, U.A. itself, and even that bastard Endeavor will, too. I thought…I wouldn’t think about that sh*t, but what else am I supposed to do here? Ugh. I gotta f*cking lie down. My head is throbbing.

Collapsing into a heap on the floor, my blood swishes in a stream with me. The world ebbs back and forth between being fuzzy and being steeped in ink. Yet, as I continue to blink, a wispy wash of white trickles down towards my hand, and soon, the fluctuating threads of snow curl around my hand. I rub my eyes, but my hands remain still at my sides.

Now looking up at the source of the feathery pool of white, I raise my brows at the familiar figure extending his hand to me. None other than Shoto Todoroki offers me his hand, but unlike the mirthful mitigation I imagined of the cruel realm of reality we once lived in, all is silent. Not a damn sound can be heard—not even the faint ringing of the ears, the subtle fluttering of the eyelids, the huff of any breaths, or the tramping of heartbeats. Todoroki’s countenance seems like suppressed misery behind an emotionless facade.

I…killed myself, I think while staring at my lifeless corpse. My wrists burn. My head throbs. Wait, what the f*ck? How the hell does it hurt?

“Sho?” I call out to him, and in response, he gestures for me to follow him.

The world is the same, but a ghastly hue varnishes its features, and no longer am I capable of affecting anything in the world with my presence—unless a Quirk is perhaps present. Gradually, my hearing begins to return, and the ambience of the world sloshes through my ears again.

Shoto, why will you not speak to me? Don’t tell me you’re pissed that I did this. But it’s f*cking surreal to be able to see you again… I want to hug you and tell you we’re together again. I thought the pain was supposed to end, but I can still feel where I slit my wrists. It hurts, but it’s not unbearable. I thought you were supposed to be free and able to rest peacefully, but Shoto…looks like he crawled right out of hell.

We walk. We seemingly walk for only a few minutes, yet the reality is that we’ve been walking for hours. But, as the destination I assume Todoroki to have in mind approaches, I sigh at the familiar, gravelly crash of the ocean waves. Once we stand immediately before the azure ocean of Odaiba Beach, Todoroki lifts his head from staring at the ground to staring out at the horizon. A rippling profound of pastel blue adorned with fireworks of a snowy mist paints the sky, and beneath that, a roaring, rolling reservoir of a grayish-blue is splintered with blinding lances of white. Rippling strings of dented snow flutter and dance across the resplendent surface of the leaping, jubilant waves. Yet, standing before the sublime forest of waltzing waves of water is Todoroki—the student who chose to commit suicide in that sprawling, fluctuating expanse of sapphire grandeur.

I hold my silence as Todoroki stares out at his pulchritudinous domain of death. Misty, effervescent silence swirls at our feet. Rivers and ribbons of blue, gray, and white coalesce beneath the breaths of the swaying sky.

“Katsuki,” he finally whispers, but his voice sounds as though it’s been strangled to hell and back; it almost seems like his voice has been partially liquidized—like he’s speaking underwater, but I can perfectly decipher what he’s saying.

I look over my shoulder at him. “Sho?”

“You feel it…right?” His cloudy hand traces up from his palm in about the length of a line that I carved onto myself four times.

“The pain? Y-Yeah. Oh, f*ck… Sho…”

So, it’s like…just before we died, we were pulled from reality and plunged into wherever the hell we are now, but we’re still being hurt in the ways that we were pulled from? f*ck. Drowning sounds so f*cking painful as it is. Just thinking about being unable to breathe makes my skin crawl. But to have my lungs filled with water over and over again…just to torture myself…

Todoroki’s empty, tormented expression doesn’t flinch, but he falters to his knees on the sand being licked by the salty waves. “Whatever pain you die with…becomes interminable. Why? Because...we committed suicide. We took...the ‘easy way out of life.’ We ended the book…early.” He strains a bit as he coils his hands around his neck. “I want to end this pain...even if I deserve it, but I can’t. Why…do I want to die when I’m already dead? Why does this hurt more...than being alive? It hurts, Katsuki...and there’s nothing we can do… No matter how much I want...to find some reprieve…the pain is the same. It’s…killing me. I can’t…end it. I can’t…make it stop. I can’t escape…from the pain. Even though I'm dead…I’ve tried so hard…to die a second time. That’s h-how much it hurts…” His grip tightens, but he’s unable to hurt himself further or end the pain that he’s been anathematized for from inflicting that pain on himself.

I kneel down in front of Todoroki and deftly wedge my fingers between his fingers in an attempt to pry his hands from his neck. “Sho, please don’t f*cking do this… You—”

His eyes narrow into acute blades of rancor. “Why? What else...am I supposed to do? Be happy? Take it easy? It d-doesn’t...f*cking matter what I do, Katsuki Love myself, hate myself, hurt myself, heal myself… None of it m-matters. None… All because...I k-killed myself…” His lips pull back as he now digs his misty hands into his chest around where his heart once was. “It hurts inside. It hurts outside. I-I… Why can’t I tear apart this goddamn laughter of my heartbeat?!” I attempt to restrain his hands, but he’s f*cking desperate as he savages his chest with the blades of his hands.

Shoto, please f*cking stop, goddammit! I internally bellow as my boyfriend hysterically lances his nails through his neck and chest. Nothing you do…is gonna make a difference. I know you died in such a painful f*cking way, but for f*ck’s sake! I…can’t f*cking bear to see you do this to yourself! You already died once, but you still want to hurt yourself?! Shoto, please…

His snow-kissed form writhes with the visceral, undying, mind-mutilating contortions of his hyperventilating that’s been water-impregnated, his jagged jerking of his shoulders and arms that once flailed to force his body to the surface of the ocean, and his irate paroxysms of abject self-destruction that have manifested in his soul itself. “Why did I f*cking kill myself like this, Katsuki?!” he acrimoniously wails before falling into silence as he clutches at his chest and tips his head back; as though his lungs are filled with water and petals, he begins to hack up nothing as rivulets of tears snake down his cheeks.

I attempt to steady him with my hands on his quivering, jerking shoulders. “Sh-Shoto, I can’t f*cking stand this! Stop, Shoto… Stop f-f*cking hurting yourself, g-goddammit!” Tears trail down my cheeks as I continue to watch as Shoto Todoroki endeavors the asphyxiation of his very soul.

With bared teeth, he thrashes his head to the left and right. “IT DOESN’T f*ckING MATTER, KATSUKI!” He forcibly shoves me back towards the maw of the ocean. “It doesn’t f-f*cking matter! I can’t hurt myself more, so it doesn’t f*cking matter anymore!” He rolls up his foggy sleeves to reveal the salient, gleaming myriad of scars that have been illuminated faintly with scarlet, and he stabs his ghastly nails through those self-inflicted scars. “Wh-Why did I choose to t-torture myself?!” he shrieks with a voice drowned by the weight of water, petals, blood, and repressed, vindictive emotion. “Why did I do this?!” he screams as his nails rake across every inch of his body that he can reach. “I…I-I didn’t know, Katsuki! I DIDN’T f*ckING KNOW, KATSUKI!” His emotionless facade finally splinters as he throws his head over my shoulder and releases his manic, choked sobs.

What the hell...do I say? I ponder while holding him fast as his chest rapidly heaves against mine; his heartbeat bashes against his ribs and veins, his shattered breaths rapidly yet intermittently tear from the air to be hacked back out, his watery voice is swallowed up by an ocean of agony before transiently emerging, his limbs quake in my grasp, and his hands throttle my misty shirt. “It’s okay” is just a lie. All words of comfort…are just f*cking lies. It’s not okay, I can’t make it okay, and it’s never gonna be okay. There’s…nothing I can say. There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing I can realistically hope for. No matter how hard he sobs, it’s never gonna erase the pain. No matter what mask he wears, he can’t hide from the truth. No matter what he does…there’s no right answer. Why the hell is Reality so f*cking f*cked up? Is this hell? That’s what it f*cking feels like...and there’s not a single goddamn thing we can do.

“I love you…Sho,” I whisper to him while snuggling up against him as strains of ululating sobs pour from his throat. “I love you… I love you…” I force myself to say in an attempt to allay the reality which excruciates his very soul. “W-We… We’re…together, r-right?” My tears dance along his shoulder, but the only response from him I receive is the sound of his sobs.

But it’s not enough.

Similar to the dream Todoroki depicted with one of his notes to me, here we are: snuggled up at the beach, but rather than being at the beach where I confessed to him, we snuggle at the beach where he killed himself. His hoarse sobs cascade from his water-filled throat as I embrace him in the fashion I imagined him offering to me prior to my own successful suicide attempt. He occasionally coughs and sounds as though he’s vomiting as his grip around me tightens, dwindles, and tightens again in intermittent interludes—it’s like he’s straining to void his lungs of the water he drowned in, and the petals and flowers he inadvertently nurtured in both his lungs and stomach. I’ve never witnessed Todoroki exhibiting so much goddamn emotion until now, and right now, he’s f*cking dead, and he’s still being tortured as he sobs as if to challenge the ocean in front of him.

No matter what happens…

Minutes become hours, hours become days, days become weeks, weeks become months, months become years…but no matter how long Todoroki sobs for, and no matter how much I might love him and hold him close, there’s nothing we can do to change the past. There’s nothing we can do to change our futures. Plain and simple, unembellished, and unvarnished…there is nothing we can do. Our sobs, our cries, our screams, our dreams, our actions, our voices, our love… Everything we did, everything we might try, everything we fought for, everything we want to fight for…. They all mean nothing…because we committed suicide.

…the pain’s the same.

“Shoto…”

I can’t fix you.

“Hey, Shoto…”

You can’t fix me.

“...I know I can’t do anything to assuage the agony, but for as long as you need to cry, I’m gonna be right here, okay?”

We love each other anyway.

He nods.

We deliberately left the word we thought was the cruelest f*cking thing to exist…

“Cry all you want, Babe…”

…and because of that, all we can do is suffer together.

“It’s not okay, but that’s okay.”

All we can do is face our regrets and mistakes together.

“I love you, and I’ll do whatever I can for you.”

All we can do is live with the undying pain now that we’re dead together.

I smile and kiss the side of his head as his breath tangles up before promptly unraveling.

I’m so f*cking sorry…

Tears creep down my cheeks.

All the pain you feel on the outside and inside is entirely my fault.

I reinforce my tenacious grip around him.

The reason you want to die when you already tortured yourself to death is my fault…

With a ragged chuckle, I begin to sob with him.

…and there’s nothing I can do to change it.

Denial drains from my dripping voice of duplicitous, saccharine hope as reality sinks into my sobs.

I’m so f*cking sorry…

Decades have become centuries, but Todoroki still sobs into my arms at the beach he drowned in the ocean of. As if to counterpoise the pain of interminably drowning on the inside, he drowns in his tears on the outside. The waves of the ocean ram at our hips with frigid, saline waves, but the waves of Todoroki’s sobs drown us both in a perpetuated reminder of our greatest mistakes…and there is nothing we can do.

I’m never leaving your side, I remind myself while vacantly running my hand through Todoroki’s wisps of white hair. If you wanna cry for as long as we have here—until the end of time—I’ll hold you and tell you I love you for as long as you do. I can’t…take away the pain you’re always gonna feel. It’s so f*cking crippling that you’ve been sobbing for centuries, Shoto. How can I ask you to rise and try to achieve some kind of happiness when the pain is this goddamn unbearable? There’s nothing I can do…but be here for you. If that’s the only thing I can do, I’ll gladly f*cking do it, but it kills me…to see you like this. It kills me that you’re suffering, but I can’t do anything to alleviate any of the pain. It kills me that you killed yourself because you were hurting so goddamn much…and your punishment is an interminable sentence of wanting to die so f*cking much to end the pain you’ve forever been saddled with, but never being able to die or mitigate the pain. It kills me that this is what our love became. But there’s nothing we can do. No matter how much it kills us both after we’ve killed ourselves…there’s nothing we can do to change the past or our futures. We’re only going to want to end the pain because we killed our means of resting peacefully. I hate the truth that’s killing us both, but we can’t change it. Plain and simple…there’s nothing we can do.