Mistystarshine notes: I wanted to do something to celebrate reaching our goals and Ohmytheon's been wanting to write some one-shots for Touya's past, so I wrote one myself and bit the bullet and made KiR a series so we have somewhere to post them going forward. How long will this fic be? I don't know. Will it have one solid plotline? Nope. Will the chapters even be properly connected? Sure won't. But! We hope it provides some insight and you enjoy it anyway.
Disclaimer: We own nothing.
There was something to be said for impulses. Touya always liked to seriously consider them because, while further evaluation revealed that many of them amounted to garbage and deserved to be dismissed immediately, some of them were genuinely good ideas. He liked to think that this one fell in the latter category.
Knowing how to scale the side of a building was a skill that could easily prove itself useful. No, he might not need that knowledge now, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't eventually. There was no telling when an extra escape route would come in handy. One could even argue that the odds that someday he would need to make an emergency exit-via-window were on the high side. Therefore, it made perfect sense for him to see if he could climb out of his window. He wasn't doing something reckless because he was curious and bored; he was practicing in order to hone a skill.
In theory, it wouldn't be too hard. He only had to climb a few feet down to reach the first story overhang. From there, he could probably grab onto a tree or find some other path easily enough. In practice, it was much more difficult. It took a dishearteningly long time just to get off his windowsill. There was a lot of quiet cursing as he scrambled to get a foothold on the side of the house. Once he was content that the centimeters-deep nook he had wedged his toes in was enough to hold him, he began looking for a hand-hold other than his windowsill itself. He had just started to tentatively reach for a slightly extended plank of siding when he heard the quiet whine of a window being pushed open a few meters away.
Natsuo poked his head out to shamelessly gawk at his older brother. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Touya grunted. The plank didn't wiggle when he clasped his fingers around it or when he gave it an experimental shake. He allowed himself a victorious grin.
"It's obviously not nothing," the younger boy huffed. He leaned further out of the window to get a better look at his brother.
"It's nothing you should be doing," Touya shot back. He moved to grab onto the siding with his second hand, completely freeing himself from the window. Progress. After basting in his victory for a second, he glanced back at Natsu, which prompted him to call, "And don't lean so far out!"
Natsu snorted. "Hypocrite." Nonetheless, he pulled back until he was no longer dangling half of his torso out the window.
"I'm not a hypocrite; I'm just older ." Slowly, Touya began to lower himself, one foot extended and slowly brushing against the wall as he blindly searched for his next foothold. "I can do things that you can't yet."
There was so much indignity in his little brother's huff that he could almost taste it. "Not that much! You're only three years older."
Touya looked up specifically to give Natsuo a shit-eating grin. "Exactly. You're practically an infant."
The boy let out an offended squawk, which was met with a laugh that was only slightly muffled in an attempt to keep their father from hearing. As if he would notice them anyway. (And if he did, then what? It was just Touya. As long as Natsu didn't get in trouble, it was fine.) That earned him a glare and cry of, "Touya!"
"Well, you wouldn't let Shouto scale U.A., would you?" he teased.
"Shouto's eight. I'm eleven." Although he didn't say it, the look Natsuo shot him perfectly conveyed the rest of his thought. And you're a fourteen-year-old dumbass.
If he weren't using both of his hands to cling to the side of the house, Touya would have waved one of them. "Close enough."
This time, Natsu heaved a gusty, dramatic sigh. Touya barely heard it, but the fact that it reached his ears at all meant that it must have been fairly loud. He flopped down to limply lean across the windowsill in place of leaning outright. "Why are you climbing that way, anyway?" he asked. "Wouldn't it have been easier to go down the other side? With the balcony?"
There was a certain quality to the silence that fell over them. It wasn't sinister or awkward, but it certainly wasn't pleasant either. Mocking. The very air felt like it was mocking him with every moment it took for him to scrape together an answer. Although that was ultimately only a few moments, that was still far, far too long.
"If I was in my bedroom, this way would be faster," Touya lied. Climbing down from the balcony probably wouldn't take as long due to the extra handholds provided. However, it would leave him in the center courtyard rather than outside of the house completely. So why didn't he think of that before speaking? He ground down the agitating thought and gave the dent in the siding his foot had found a few experimental taps. When it didn't disappear, he firmly wedged his toes in and began searching for his next handhold, one hand clinging to the previous one and his other foot dangerously close to sliding off of its perch. Despite his precarious position, as he moved, he added, "I don't need to take the easy way."
His eyes caught an oddly placed board. He grabbed it with his searching hand and in one quick, flailing movement, swung himself into his new position. For one alarming moment, the whole world seemed to wobble as he felt his fingers begin to slip, but he tightened his grip and the movement ceased.
Touya let out a relieved breath followed by a self-satisfied smirk. One step closer to the bottom. His victory was tainted by his brother's next question, this one in spoken in a softer, more hesitant voice. "Are you sure you aren't gonna fall?"
A glance upward revealed that Natsu was now frowning down at him, eyebrows furrowed in concern. The sight made him pause, albeit probably not for the reason Natsuo wanted. Did he realize, he wondered, how rare it was for a Todoroki to make such an expression these days? He knew that it was seldom seen on him, and even though she was a girl, Fuyumi wasn't as free with them as she once had been, should have been. They seemed to be growing rarer for Shouto with each passing day. Eventually, would they cease entirely?
The moment came and went. Touya resumed climbing as he spoke, hoping to prove his point with actions as much as words. "I'm sure." One more step. Two. The next one took a little while longer than the others, but it, too, was reached without a blunder. He could almost feel Natsu's worry begin to fade as his own confidence grew. It looked like he would reach the balcony in about two more steps.
He reached his next step down through a maneuver that was half-grabbing, half-sliding. The tension in his fingertips as he clung to the wall filled him with adrenaline that carved his mouth into a rare smile. Touya paused to call out, "See? I-" The remainder of his sentence was cut off as the world began to tilt. Letting go of the wall wasn't a conscious decision or even a decision at all. That implied that he had some sort of choice. The indentation he clung to was just too shallow and his fingers too sore.
Maybe he should have paid more attention to his fingertips. In retrospect, the pain he felt probably didn't mean 'you're getting stronger ' so much as 'your footholds are insufficient and your fingertips cannot support your entire bodyweight.'
There was a millisecond in which Touya didn't understand what was happening. After that, he only had an instant to feel dread and regret. Then there was only pain. He hit the first-level overhang with a thud and fell off of it too quickly to grab onto something, gravity taking its gleeful vengeance upon the fool who had thought to spite it in a motion that felt more like he bounced off than slid. The impact meant he was aching during the two seconds of free falling before he hit the ground, at which point it increased tenfold. Somehow, it wasn't the worst thing he was feeling.
"Touya!" Natsuo cried. Touya, of course, didn't notice. He was too occupied with the spinning of his head, the air that had been forced out of his lungs, the pain radiating through his body, and the burning humiliation that had begun to descend upon him despite all of that. There was no way he would be lucky enough that no one else heard that. Everyone was going to see him sprawled helplessly on the ground after falling like some clumsy, self-made damsel. Distantly, he also wondered if he had imagined that snapping sound when he hit the ground. That would explain why his arm felt like a beaver was trying to gnaw through it.
Maybe if he could get up and brush it off quickly enough, he could convince Natsuo not to tell anyone else what happened.
Touya tried to sit up, only to be stopped by a jolt of pain in his right arm, fierce enough to force a whimper out of his throat. He even thought he felt moisture in his eyes. Fuck. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to look at the arm. He would have almost preferred the beaver to the swelling and bruising that had already taken hold of it.
The rest of the world began to fade back into focus. That allowed him to register the sound of the sliding door being practically thrown open and a set of heavy footsteps stomping his way, followed closely by a set of smaller, faster ones. Wonderful. Couldn't the fall have just killed him and gotten it over with?
"What happened?" Endeavor asked. Actually, bellowed was probably the better term. Touya winced for reasons that had nothing to do with his current state.
Before he could say anything, Natsu blurted out, "There was a hornet in his room! He fell out of the window trying to get it out."
At that moment, if it had begun to rain, Touya would have assumed that it was because his mortification was so powerful that it rent open the heavens themselves. If not for the pain in one arm, which was rapidly proving too severe to ignore, and the need to use the other to prop himself up, he may have tried to hide his face behind a hand despite Endeavor's probable disapproval. Or maybe the pain was actually a good thing. His face was probably pale enough that even this couldn't force a proper blush. What was impossible had also been rendered unnecessary by the very thing that made it impossible, thus completing the cycle of distress.
In the moment of silence that lingered between them, Touya noted that people thought about weird things when a significant amount of pain had suddenly befallen them very recently. Or maybe that was just him. It wouldn't surprise him.
There was no way that the silence would be allowed to last. With that in mind, Touya forced himself to look up at Endeavor. His reward was getting to see the man with his brows furrowed for a heartbeat before his expression flickered into one of irritation. He met Touya's gaze with the eyes of someone who wanted better, but knew not to expect it. It almost made him squirm. Instead, he tensed up to force stillness, accepting the jolt of increased pain up his arm and increased ache in his back and sides as payment. It made him want to apologize or shout. He didn't know which. Instead, he forced himself to wait for the other to speak first.
What he got wasn't worth the wait.
Endeavor, with his judgemental, angry eyes that always seemed resigned to failure before the person before him even tried, asked, "Why didn't you handle it with your quirk?"
Touya's jaw slackened while the hand propping him up balled into a fist, tearing up little tufts of grass with the motion. It wasn't enough. It didn't express - didn't release - any of the disbelief that welled up in him. The anger. Endeavor seriously thought that, if there was a hornet in his room, he should burn it out of the air? And it was important enough to be the first thing he said? A pair of new feelings surfaced on the heels of the last: disgust and bitter acceptance. Of course a lost training opportunity would take precedence over him breaking his arm by falling out of a window. Of course. Unless, of course, the problem was raw ineptitude on his part rather than a lost opportunity.
"I'll try it next time, see if the house doesn't burn down," Touya ground out. He didn't think his words through properly, failing to make them a clear attempt to point out the flaw in his father's logic rather than a threat, but the waver he was unable to keep from his voice removed any edge the words might have had. The moisture in his eyes similarly prevented his glare from being very effective.
At the same time, Natsuo cried, "It was really fast! You can't expect him to do that!"
As soon as he processed those words, Touya dropped his pointless glare and cast his brother a look of involuntary alarm. Humiliating as it was, hedid appreciate his brother's attempt to defend him. That didn't mean he wanted him to. The risk of Endeavor turning on him felt too real and Touya was too useless to do anything to protect his little brother. He knew that he wouldn't stand a chance against his father even if he hadn't just maimed himself.
Even so, if it came down to it, he would try.
Endeavor aimed a glare at Natsuo, which he soon turned back to Touya, before heaving a sigh that sounded more like a snarl than anything else. He could almost taste the underlying message - ' I'll forgive your backtalk this time since you seriously injured yourself with your incompetence. ' Verbally, he said, "I'm going to call a doctor." It wasn't until he had started to march back inside that, without bothering to pause or turn back around, he added, "Natsuo, help your brother inside."
They waited until he was gone to do anything. Then, Touya grumbled, "I don't need help."
Natsu rolled his eyes. "Sure." He stepped forward to take his uninjured arm anyway. Despite his claim, Touya allowed him to haul him up, feeling a spark of agitation when he had to slump down a little. It was outrageously unfair that his younger brother was taller than him. When that indignity was over, he moved to cradle his injured arm with his good one.
As they made their first slow steps toward the house, Natsuo lingering close to him like a freakishly young nurse, Touya muttered, "A hornet? God. I'll get you back for that someday." His voice was strained and quieter than he would have liked, but he still managed to infuse some heat into the words.
A weak chuckle escaped his brother's lips. "And someday, I'll be able to climb walls," he declared, "and I'll be better at it than you ever could be." Natsu looked at him out of the corner of his eye and forced a small smirk. Not that it's hard, the look said. It would be funny if he said it later. Since he wasn't one for waiting, Touya gave him an indignant huff anyway.
"No way." While the smirk Touya forced was probably closer to a grimace, he tried, so it counted. "You'll always be too little to beat me."
The look Natsu gave him was overdramatic, but there was definitely a bit of genuine offense in there. Ah. That card always got to him and never got old. "Three years!" he wailed. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "...Shorty."
For a split second, Touya managed to forget the stinging pain in his arm. Then he was fiercely reminded of it when he thoughtlessly started to move to swat his brother. He hissed in pain and drew his arm in closer to himself. When Natsuo moved to reach for it, he brushed him off with a sluggish wave of his good hand, which morphed into a fast one mid-wave when his broken arm began to protest the lack of support. "So you're a giant baby," he said after tucking them both back into place. "What else is new?"
His brother laughed. Touya thought that it sounded at least somewhat genuine. However, it wasn't enough to completely offset the glimmer of concern and unease in his eyes. It made him avert his gaze to the ground. He was the older brother. It wasn't right for one of the younger ones to worry about him.
Touya chuckled, warm and friendly and only a little strained. "Besides, it was only my first try. I'll get better." He looked up to give Natsuo a grin and endured the burning in his cheeks caused by forcing it to remain in place as he stiffly lifted his injured arm up by a few inches. "This isn't enough to take me down."
Natsuo returned his smile and, with a jolt of dismay, he realized that he couldn't tell if it was genuine or just as fake as his. "I know," he said, marking the end of the conversation.
After stepping inside the house, they made their way to the living room and sat down on the couch. There, Touya allowed the world to slip into a blurry haze as they waited for the doctor to arrive, only focusing every now and then to see if Natsuo still had that look. He didn't, but now, he wasn't confident that it meant he wasn't worried about him.
Touya would have to start doing better.
Ohmytheon notes: Do I love anything more than seeing Touya with his family, knowing full well that it will only end in tragedy? I don't know. It hurts so good and even Misty's slice of life killed me a little. Touya, you fucking dumbass, I love you, but you're killing me.