Sometimes Todoroki Shouto visits his mother.
He never makes it through the door, only gazing into the small window, staring at her back. Without fail, she's always turned towards the window, always listless. He glimpses her eyes sometimes, dull and despondent. She looks lost.
He keeps thinking he's seen her smile, sometime recently. But he knows better. He's never made it past this door. He merely watches, wishes, and thinks.
(~~)
Lately, Shouto only ever feels hollow. He sees it reflected in Aizawa's exhausted eyes, in the way his gaze shifts between each person, blinking rarely, as though trying to erase a quirk but not quite sure who to look at to cancel it. The teacher was always quiet before, but he's more somber now, somehow, as though he's never quite there with them.
Class goes on, but there's something missing.
He passes by Shinsou at the end of the period. He's murmuring to Ojiro, lips pinched in a frown. "Didn't this class… have twenty students?"
Shouto's fingertips leave frost on the edge of the desk. "No," he interrupts, fixing Shinsou with a steady stare, "it's always been nineteen."
He won't admit he's not sure if that's the truth or not.
Shinsou stares back at him for a long time, and Shouto looks away first, leaving the room with cold air in his wake.
(~~)
"Iida-san, is something the matter?"
Shouto hears Yaoyorozu's voice before he sees her. He halts, just around the corner, peering out to where the class president and vice president are speaking. Iida looks lost in thought, eyebrows furrowed and a conflicted expression on his features.
"Yaoyorozu-san," he starts, formal as always, "you were always the vice president, were you not?"
"I was," says Yaoyorozu, folding her arms over her chest and frowning, "but where are you going with this?"
"Somehow," Iida tells her, "I feel as though I wasn't always the president, though. I keep thinking someone had it before me - I wasn't the one people voted on as president originally."
"That's absurd," Yaoyorozu starts, but when she shifts enough for Shouto to see her face, she looks like she's doubting her words, "I would remember that."
"I suppose," Iida murmurs, clenching his left hand into a fist.
Shouto has memories of ice and fire and green. He has memories of a back alley fight, a blade cutting through skin and the betrayal of his own blood. Shouto remembers telling someone, "We'll protect them together," but try as he may, he can't remember who.
My friend might be in trouble, he'd told his father that night. It had been Iida in trouble, hadn't it? Iida had been the one-
Shouto turns and leaves the two to their conversation.
(~~)
He wakes again in a cold sweat, blanket half singed, feeling as though he's simultaneously overheating and freezing at the same time. It's those eyes again, staring into him, saying something- something.
The name is always at the tip of Shouto's tongue, but he can't force it out.
His bed suddenly feels empty and unappealing, so he staggers out and down the stairs.
Uraraka isn't in the dorm kitchens when Shouto arrives, but Tokoyami is. He's perched on the counter, just under the only light that's on, undoubtedly to keep Dark Shadow under control. He looks as weary as Shouto feels, head lowered and eyes only lifting to follow Shouto as he enters.
Shouto doesn't talk to Tokoyami much. They've only interacted a few times, but he has a nagging memory of seeing Tokoyami in- a cavalry battle? Shouto isn't sure what's real anymore. Tokoyami doesn't say anything, but his eyes follow Shouto around as he makes tea.
"...Couldn't sleep?" Shouto finally breaks the silence, his back to Tokoyami.
"No," his classmate replies, after a moment, "nightmares. And you?"
"Dreams, I think," Shouto murmurs, unsure.
He takes his usual seat at the table. They're both silent, for a while, but it isn't a particularly awkward thing. They're just two restless souls in a pocket of reality where time doesn't seem to exist. A part of Shouto thinks they could be decent friends - really, when did he start thinking about friends? - since they're similar enough in their own respects. Perhaps he's just too exhausted to think properly about opening his mouth, because he lowers his gaze to stare at his reflection in his drink and breaks the silence.
"Tokoyami-san," he begins, "do you… ever think your dreams could be real?"
"I prefer not to," Tokoyami tells him, after a pause, "why? Do you?"
Shouto frowns down at his cup, watching as his breath disturbs the reflection. "No. Just wondering."
He shares a solitary, mutual respect with Tokoyami after that. They still don't talk that often, but sometimes Tokoyami joins him and Uraraka in the dead of the night, when the rest of the world almost doesn't exist.
(~~)
"Just do your work," Aizawa tells them, the next day.
He doesn't crawl out of that gaudy yellow sleeping bag and everyone just lowers their heads to comply.
(~~)
"Todoroki-kun, have you been getting proper sleep?"
Shouto stops at the sound of Yaoyorozu's voice. He turns to face her and is met with the sight of a deep frown and searching eyes. He doesn't get the opportunity to speak up; she pushes on once she knows she has his attention.
"The bags under your eyes are worse than usual, and I know you haven't been paying attention lately. As the class vice president - no, as your friend, I wanted to make sure you were taking care of yourself." She hesitates a moment. "I know you don't like people intruding on your business… But lately everyone seems out of it."
He thinks of Uraraka, crying alone in the kitchens at night and of Iida, doubting he'd always been the class president. He thinks of Tokoyami, plagued by nightmares, shadows beneath his eyes illuminated by the lone light. He thinks of All Might, smile forced at the edges and of Aizawa, with Shouto's own exhaustion reflected in his eyes. He thinks of himself, taunted by memories of green eyes and constellations of freckles and I love yous.
Shouto is grateful for her friendship, but he hardly knows what taking care of yourself means lately. "I'm fine," he tells her anyways, picks up his bag, and leaves the classroom.
(~~)
Shouto keeps wondering when he started being okay with using his fire. Up to a point, even here at UA, he remembers only using his ice. He remembers stubbornly rebelling against his father - for his mother - for years and years, training and honing his ice. He remembers the cold frost creeping over his skin and the unsteady thrum of heat, fighting to be unleashed but always remaining suppressed.
And then suddenly it's free and something in his chest doesn't feel so tight anymore.
Shouto can't remember where the change occurred. He keeps thinking about the words in his dreams, the it's your power, isn't it? and the I love you, Shouto, in a voice that isn't his mother's or his sister's. Shouto keeps staring at his left hand, watching flames dart over it with no backlash of sour emotions and remorse.
Whatever he's missing, whatever he's forgetting, Shouto knows it must have been important.
(~~)
He finds the journal on the train.
It's a half hidden, nondescript thing, and everyone else's eyes just sort of glaze over it. Shouto's would have too, but somehow it screams to him, and he looks around to see who's watching, before just reaching over and snagging it by the corner. It reads Hero Analysis For The Future on the front, marked with a large Volume 14 up in the corner. Shouto almost recognizes it, somehow - it's a nagging tug in his memories.
He spends the train ride flipping slowly through the pages, entries upon entries and drawings of multiple heroes and villains and a thorough analysis of battles, strengths, weaknesses, and what could be done to improve. It's impressive, to say the least.
So Shouto, of course, is surprised when he finds an entry about himself.
He stops entirely, having been preparing to turn the page, but seeing TODOROKI SHOUTO is shocking. It's a complete analysis of his quirk - both sides - and even a drawing, not to mention the rest. Shouto knows this should strike him as creepy; someone knows enough about him to have written this. Inexplicably, instead, it gives him a warm feeling.
Shouto tucks the notebook into his bag on the way off the train. It gives him a little bit of boldness as he walks towards the Todoroki home for the first time in a while.
(~~)
Shouto isn't scared of his father anymore. Hatred, yes, but that's a given. But he doesn't fear him anymore. When he looks at Enji, he sees the face of a man foreign to him, fueled by anger and spite.
In the back of his mind, someone tells Shouto that he is not his father.
So, no, Shouto isn't scared of his father anymore.
