A/N:
There will be sexual harassment in this chapter. I will not be marking where it starts and stops because it is mentioned throughout the chapters, so from here on out, there won't be warnings for this. I will only post warnings if I didn't include them in this story's tags or if I feel that I should post them.
Shoto Todoroki
- Week 2 -
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 shit you've burdened everyone around you with by fucking dying. Do you see how fucking 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 fucking 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 shit, 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 fuck 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 fuck—" He pauses briefly. "Tch. I'd just fuck 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 fuck 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. "Fuck. 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 shit." 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 fucking 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 fuck'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 shit. 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 fucking 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 shit out of," Bakugou fulminates, interjecting my words.
"Bakugou."
He clicks his tongue. "I kid you not—that sack of shit 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."
"Fucking hell. You aren't responsible for his shitty 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 bullshit."
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 fuckin' 'Hero' beats the shit 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 fucks 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 shit 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 fucked it all up, you pathetic, whining pile of trash. No one would miss a fuck-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 shit 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 fuckin' 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. "Bullshit 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 bullshit 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 fuck'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.
I don't want to be alone with the warmth you gave to me. This warmth... Why is it that this warmth causes my chest to throb? I feel so relaxed in his warmth, yet my chest tightens. Why is it that I typically find myself voiding the aggregation of petals and blood inside of me when he occupies my mind?
He looks so fucking 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 shit 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 fucking 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? Fuck me. I mean... God. Fucking. Dammit! That way's fine, too. Tch. His eyes look so empty and timid, yet they're...beautiful. Oh, shit—he's looking at me. Shit. 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 fucktards 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...